The Essential Questions for 2017

Happy New Year! And what a year 2016 has been. My three biggest takeaways from 2016? Jesus is unfailing. His ways are higher than my own. And sometimes God's greatest blessings are not in what He gives--but rather in what He takes away.

I don't know about you, but I am looking toward the future with hope and expectation. These are some of the questions I'm asking myself at the onset of a new year. I think they're pretty important questions--for a lot of different reasons--and I hope you'll consider asking them of yourself, too.

In 2017:

1. Who or what are you going to wear out your knees in prayer for?
2. How are you no longer willing to feel?
3. What are you no longer willing to settle for?
4. Knowing that your tongue can either give life or it can kill and destroy, what are you going to do with yours this year? How? Why?
5. If you could read one book in 2017 besides the Bible, what would it be?
6. Imagine that it's December 31st and you only managed to accomplish one thing this year. If you had to choose--what would it be?
7. Is anyone or anything poisoning your life? What can you do today to detox?
8. What bondage in your life needs to be broken this year?
9. What do you want Jesus to do for you? (See this post.)
10. Are you willing to be a person of excellence? (See this article.)
11. What's worth some--or a great deal of--pain and discomfort this year?
12. What in your life are you utterly disgusted with? What are you sick of? (I know this is strong terminology, but I'm thinking about that quote, "No one will ever change until they become utterly disgusted with the old way.")
13. What is the best compliment you can imagine getting this year? (I'm a big believer that what you label "the best compliment you've ever gotten" speaks VOLUMES about what is important to you and the kind of person you want to be).
14. Who do you appreciate? If you are not telling them that you appreciate them, why not? What are you waiting for?
15. Are you being faithful in your life? If not, why not? (See this post.)
16. What's worth sleepless nights, early mornings, sore muscles, and other sacrifices to you?
17. What promise(s) of God are you going to stand on when you are strong and fall on when you are weak?
18. How are you going to take care of yourself this year?
19. Imagine that the life you want in 2017 is being turned into a movie. What's on the soundtrack?
20. What's stopping you?