Each new year brings new opportunities, activities, and an increase in ministry work. We create new year’s resolutions for fitness, health, or work. But one thing that is often overlooked is thinking about what our pace for all of these things should be. Often, we just make our list and go full speed ahead, especially when we see everyone around us doing the same. Our pace can become so fast and busy that we don’t feel like we can take a moment to slow down or we might miss something. This can often cause some of the most important things like quiet time with the Lord or intentional family time to get pushed aside. This fast pace can be exhausting and often counterproductive as we can lose sight of how the Lord is working, and we can become so overwhelmed that we are unable to keep going. 

If we plan our year relying on our own strength, forgetting the instructions the Lord gives, and setting a pace we were not meant to move at, we can get burnt out. BUT if we plan based on what we know about the Lord and his will, He will give us the strength to continue on, just like the wind propels a sailboat forward, the Lord will move you in the direction he has for you. Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.”  

Planning With Prayer and Our God-Given Capacity

As we make plans for what 2026 may look like, we need to remember to start with prayer, asking the Lord what He would have for us in this new year. It is also important to plan for times of rest in our schedules. Rest helps us to set a pace that fits within our God given capacity. It is easy to look to those around us and try to match the pace and output they seem to have instead of doing what the Lord has for us specifically. 

Not only did God create you with your own gifts and talents, He also gives you the strength to accomplish what he has for you. Just like there are various rubber band sizes: large ones, small ones, and medium ones. Each can perform its job well but only to the capacity to which it was created. A small rubber band can successfully hold a small bundle, and a large rubber band can hold a large bundle. However, if you take a small rubber band and try to stretch it around a large bundle it will snap. It was not designed to hold that much. Rubber bands were also designed to only hold their load for so long. No matter the size, they can only be stretched to their capacity for a time, before they need to return to their resting position. If they are stretched too far and stay that way for too long, they will snap. When we operate outside of our God given capacity trying to do things we weren’t created to do, or do them at a pace to which we were not created, we can get burnt out, we can snap.  

1 Peter 4:10-11 states, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.”

God’s Pace Includes Rest

Just like a rubber band needs rest, God’s pace not only allows for rest but encourages it. In Genesis 2:2 it says “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work”. Luke 10:40-42 reads, “But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!’ ‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord answered, ‘you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her’”. Mary probably had many things to do that day and many preparations to make for earthly comfort and needs. However, she chose to sit at the Lord’s feet and learn from him, she chose to rest in the Lord, knowing that was most important, even though it went against the “culture” of the day.

As your 2026 schedule begins to fill-up, remember to start your planning with prayer in order to set a pace that aligns with your God given skills and one that has many opportunities to rest in the Lord and allows for Him to give you the strength to do what is before you. 

“I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure . . .” Psalm 16:8-9 

“Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken” Psalm 62:5-6