Military Wellness Collective

EP 20: From Resolutions to Godly Rhythms: Using Time Wisely and Setting Goals That Last

• Military Wellness Collective

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New Year noise is loud—gym ads, perfect planners, and big promises. We chose a quieter path: stewarding time as a gift, setting a few meaningful goals, and building small habits that actually last. With friends at the table, we dig into why goals matter from a Christian worldview and how to align them with the call to walk wisely and make the best use of the days.

We start with the why, drawing from Ephesians 5:15–17 to reframe resolutions around purpose and discipleship. Then we get practical. We outline five steps to move from intention to action: get time alone with God to pray and think, list your roles and responsibilities, pick one or two resets or starts in each area, write them down, and tell someone for accountability. We also share a helpful eight-area review—finances, community, health and wellness, fun and recreation, home and spaces, family, spiritual and personal growth, and work and learning—plus a simple rating approach to see what needs attention right now.

Real stories make it stick: a pricey program that failed because it was solo and unrealistic, the tiny morning routine that succeeded because it was shared and doable, and the monthly double-date rhythm that strengthened friendship and eventually sparked this podcast. We talk about starting with January, not the whole year; focusing on a few true goals; and choosing givens you can enact immediately. For anyone beginning a Bible reading plan, we offer a gentle strategy: remember your why, consider starting with the New Testament to build the habit, and keep going when you miss a day.

If you want fewer resolutions and more transformation, this conversation will help you choose what matters, simplify your next steps, and keep your eyes on Christ. Listen, take one small action today, and share your January goal with us. Subscribe, leave a review, and pass this along to a friend who needs a reset.


SHOW NOTES:

Connect with us at Hello@militarywellnesscollective.com

Don't forget to share your goals with us! We would love to hear from you.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

Cultivate What Matters (Brittany's recommended) Cultivate What Matters / PowerSheets Best Selling Goal Planner

Monk Manual (Brittany's Recommended) Monk Manual - A Daily System for Being and Doing

Brian O'Day Blog Post https://brianoday.com/2025/02/28/process-your-military-deployment/  

Support the show

http://instagram.com/militarywellnesscollective


SPEAKER_02:

Welcome back, everybody. I am joined here. My name is Joshua, and I'm here with Brian and Kelly O'Day. What's up?

SPEAKER_00:

Hey guys. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Sorry.

SPEAKER_02:

And my wonderful wife, Brittany. And so we're we're quickly approaching the new year, and we're going to be talking a little bit about that today and what happens during the new year besides gym memberships going through the roof. Stay out of the gym in January. I know, right? The people that do go to the gym regularly throughout the year, and they've actually lasted to through December, they show up on James. And they're like, oh yeah, it's the bag that can get out of the machine. Yeah. But the reason that is is because so many people make New Year's resolutions or they set goals for themselves and those kinds of things. But we're going to talk a little bit about how to think through that well. So what is the difference between goals, resolutions, things? Like what are we talking about here? What what is it that we're doing at the New Year?

SPEAKER_01:

I think intentionality is what comes to my mind when I think about well, life in general, but I really think about it the turn of the year. I really start thinking about it the first day of Advent as I prepare because I love the liturgical year.

SPEAKER_04:

But yeah, for me, it's it's a whole season of reflecting on what has been and then moving forward with the two words are like intentionality, purpose. Even recently this year, the word clarity, like clarify, what am I doing? Why am I doing all that kind of stuff?

SPEAKER_01:

I like what you said about reflect. My two words that I use every year are reflect and reset. What needs to be reset? Where have I become disoriented? And where do I need to reorient is kind of what I think about this time of year.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So January, the gyms are full, and then it tapers off.

SPEAKER_04:

Good time to sell like some diet stuff, some diet plan stuff, good time to sell some memberships.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So the question then is how do we then really I wanna I want to dive into this is since that happens to so many people and we fall back into these routines and so many resolutions go not fulfilled, or so many plans go and they fall by the wayside for so many people and we see it year after year. We want to start with why we're doing what we're doing. And once we define why we're doing what we're doing, and we can use some of these different verbiage and we can think about it intentionally and do it well, maybe we can be those people that are truly setting goals and fulfilling those as the Lord desires in our in our lives. So so why set goals in the first place? Why even make some of these goals or those plans for our lives?

SPEAKER_04:

I would say it's scriptural for sure. Like they're all throughout the scriptures, are these encouragements to think about how we think and think about how we live and think about how we walk. And so it's just all over the place. Once you start seeing it, you'll see it all over the place. Well, A, once you start reading your Bible, B, once you start noticing these things, you're just gonna see it everywhere. Like, oh yeah. Yeah, think about how you think, think about how you walk, think about how you live.

SPEAKER_00:

I have one here in Ephesians 5, 15 through 17. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. I love that passage.

SPEAKER_04:

There is so much there we're using the ESV translation language here, like make the best use of the time, look carefully how you walk. Why? Because the days are evil, we should walk not as fools, but we should understand what the will of the Lord is. Like it's just that is so rich. And again, there's lots of other cousin passages to that passage. We we've got to live life on purpose.

SPEAKER_02:

So what it doesn't say is, oh man, I want this better in my life, so I'm just gonna change it on January 1st.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Right. You know, I remember hearing this like Francis Chan. I might be wrong, but many years ago, I was just talking about like, why do you make resolutions just to like you know, fail at them? But one thing that that teaches us, it's kind of like, okay, make them, you're gonna fail. But it points us to like we need Jesus because we're gonna fail at all these things that you know, things like that, I guess, that are like let me, you know, I'm gonna work out every day or I'm gonna eat right or whatever. Like it's it just has a limit with us, but yeah, yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_01:

And one thing I think about when I think about making the best use of your time, that stands out to me in that passage, like you were saying it when what you heard from Francis Chan. To me, I I used to think of time as a resource instead of a gift from God to be steward and given back to him. And so even when we talk about goals and resolutions, like we can make these plans to steward well, but we hold them open-handedly because he can change them. So when I think of goal setting with intention, I'm inviting the Lord into that. Like, absolutely what are the priorities in my life that you've given me and where do you want me to go with this? And how do I utilize the gift of time? Because none of us, I know, let me back up a minute. We all say we have the same amount of time. We do all have 24 hours in a day, but my day could be cut short. Like, we really don't know how much time we have. And so are we being purposeful with it? That's what I like to think about at this time of year. Like, what does God want from me? What does he require of me to use my time wisely and not foolishly? Right.

SPEAKER_00:

I know what I was thinking about. I think the past couple of years, just with life circumstances and all that stuff, I I look on the year of kind of being like, I don't know what this year's gonna bring. Right. You know, like every year's so different. And sometimes I think that can be like fear-inducing, like, you know, just like, oh, what? But at the same time, I've realized the importance of just I want to be on a firm foundation, you know, and just no matter what the year brings. And that's kind of like, God, what what do you want to teach me to so that I will not waver in my faith this year or doubt your goodness or your truths, you know? So I always think about that, like just what is this year gonna bring? I don't know, but the Lord knows. And I want to be girding up my loins. Yeah, you want to participate, yes, yes, not just be passive. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's good. Any other thoughts on why we're planning it? It it's it's so important to have the why behind what you're doing, the need behind the need, if you will. Because otherwise, if we're just doing stuff to do stuff because, oh, you heard on a podcast one day that this sounded like a good idea, it's gonna fail because there's no under underneath like purpose behind it. So any other thoughts on why we do these?

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. So our specific version of what we're talking about is getting these things from the Lord, understanding what the will of the Lord is, because if you don't, it's really gonna be filled in by well-crafted marketing campaigns.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's get business.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. Like gyms know that people will do gym memberships, right? Diet companies know like this is their this is their game time, right? All the retail people, all the clothes and trinkets and toys and all that stuff, their their Super Bowl was in November and December. This is now gym membership organization. You you walk into Lowe's this week and you walk into like every store, Target, all the stores, and there's organization bins, like, hey, you just got a bunch of stuff. Now you need to organize it. And so we want to find it from the Lord.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it doesn't mean that you're not gonna do any of these things, like right. I mean, we started rhythms of working out and being physically active in a new year, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

But it was absolutely yeah, it was you were cultivating a habit. I think that's different. Yes. We can talk about that later. Right.

SPEAKER_03:

Godly habits, godly disciplines that that'll sustain forever. It's amazing how he uses the word discipleship. Discipleship.

SPEAKER_02:

Same root word there. That's good. That's good. That's good. So what I'm hearing here is the why behind what we're doing, we have this gift of time that we are to utilize for it in this Christian worldview, if you're a believer, like for God, because the days are evil. And we need to make these plans to prosper for for the Lord, and it is his desire for us for us to do so. For us to be purposeful, intentional, and truly go forth with our time focused on God and everything that we do. And we need to do that with intentionality. So if we don't have that why behind what we're doing, we're truly gonna fall by the wayside. So let's roll into the how do we do it then. I think there's a lot of people out there who are just thinking, okay, great. You said all of these lofty things of why we need to do what we need to do and why we need to put this purpose in our lives, but how do we do it? How does that actually happen? What are some what are some things that we can do to put this these things in place?

SPEAKER_04:

That's good. So uh because I sit down and write lists all the time. I've got five steps to do this. And so I'll just walk through them. Maybe I'll write them down somewhere else. But number one is block off some time to get away with the Lord and think and pray. Kelly and I use this word we picked up somewhere along the way, prank, praying and thinking together. So get some space over this weekend, over the first week of the year, anytime. You can do this any time of the year. But get some time alone with the Lord. And listen, I'm not talking about a three-day journey on top of a mountain. If you can do that, great, you should go do that. Right. If you're gonna take six months to walk the Appalachian Trail, like great, go do that. But can you get an hour away? Can you get a morning away? Can you get whatever? Like, get away with the Lord, think, prank. You know, a quiet theme of this podcast is put your phone away. Don't take your phone with you. Block off some time, get away with the Lord. Number two, prayerfully think through the roles and responsibilities in your life. The big primary roles, responsibilities of your life. So, for a lot of us in this audience, I'm a person in a body, right? And so I might need some physical things. Kelly talked about, was it two years ago? Two years ago, we made a commitment. Like, we're gonna start working out together before she goes to the church. Early morning. So early in the morning. But anyway, like, and we're embodied souls. And so, you know, I'm a person, I'm a Christian. What do I want to do as a Christian? I'm a husband, I'm a father for you, like you're a wife or your mother. I'm a Marine, I have a vocation, I have an occupation. That's I'm not a Marine anymore. Sorry, Marines, I know once a Marine, always a Marine, but anyway, I'm a pastor now. But anyway, like what's your vocation? And so if we're not careful, we get lopsided. Like we're all of our all of our like goals are in one area and we neglect the others. So I want you to start by laying all of your roles and responsibilities before the Lord and saying, what do I need to do? Number three, prayerfully choose one to two things that you want to either reset. Britney, I love that idea of reset. You need to like recommit, reset some word that starts with re, or you need to start, right? And you need to start a habit, a godly habit, a godly discipline. Like, I'm gonna read my Bible this year, like and I'm gonna, or hey, my wife and I, we're gonna go on a date once a month, or whatever. Like, we're going to do like what are one or two godly habits, one or two things per role responsibility that you want to invest in, etc. All right, the last two. So those are really I mean, it's really two steps after you block off the time. What are your roles responsibilities? Write down one or two things. And then my big thing is write them down. And number five is tell someone. You're just more apt. It becomes real when you put it on paper, and it becomes real when you tell somebody else.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think that's again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Who would you tell? I would start with my wife. Okay. And then I would tell somebody in my church. I might tell my community group, I might tell my pastor, I am a pastor, but I'd tell my fellow pastors, elders. Kind of depending on what it is. Yeah, it depends on what the category is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So that's a good question, though. So, like, I may not tell somebody all of the things that I wrote down, right? But I want to tell the ones that make sense for that person I'm talking to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That's good. I'm kind of similar to Brian. I have eight areas that I reflect and reset on. And this comes from cultivate what matters. So this is not a Britney invention. I started using this a few years ago. So the eight areas are finances. Like, what are we doing to steward well our finances, community? So our church, our friends, health and wellness, good, fun and recreation, home and spaces, my family, my spiritual and personal growth, and work and learning. Like, what am I doing to grow in those spaces? And so I like to reflect on those eight areas, like what's been God been teaching me, what's gone well, what hasn't gone well, and then reset. And I do this at the beginning of the year. I start probably in December taking time away, like Brian does. But then I relook at this at the end of every month and then at the end of every quarter. And so when I'm goal setting, I'm breaking those down into bite sizes. But so I just wanted to share those eight areas that I like to look at in my life regularly.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I don't know. That's good.

SPEAKER_00:

And very intentional. I like that. And because I'm not like you guys, I don't have eight points in all that. But I I want to grow in that and being intentional and pulling it back out. I like that.

SPEAKER_01:

I think for me, I a question that there's a book, Cultivate What Matters. And one of the questions she confronts in the beginning, and and she's a believer, uh, Laura Casey, she asks, like, when you're 80 years old and you look back on your life, what is gonna matter? Because a lot of the things that we're buying into in this culture and society and in the military life, because it is fast-paced, are things that are urgent, but they're not important.

SPEAKER_00:

When they're distracting, yes, they distract us from what's important. That's what I think about. Like remove the distractions.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. And like help me to focus on what is truth, what's good, what's right, what's beautiful, what's honorable, like in these things that you've given me, these areas in my life. And so another thing that I like to think about that I learned from She Works His Way was that there is a difference between a goal and a given. Like a given, I can just do right now, tomorrow, right? I'm just saying I'm gonna commit to it. A goal is something you're gonna have to put some effort into. And so if you have more, and I y'all might disagree with me, but if you have more than three goals, maybe more than five, but I would say three, like three actual goals, you're probably not gonna do them because goals take effort and work, intentionality, they take space, time, all the things.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, and and so it's like so some of them are yeah, like let's focus on a couple of these at a time. Cause you know, yes. I I listed out, you know, I forget how many roles, and you talked about eight different areas of our life. And so some of those might be going well, and you just like remind yourself, like, oh yeah, I need to recommit to this rhythm that I've been in the habit of before. The holidays got me a little wonky, but I just need to get back into it, or a deployment got it wonky, or whatever the case is. I need to get back into it. But if it's like, I need to, I want to learn how to play the piano in 2026.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah, that's gonna take some time.

SPEAKER_04:

You gotta focus on it. You can't like, I'm gonna learn to play the piano and learn Russian and uh pass my advancement test. And you know what I'm saying? Like, you can't do all those things this year, probably.

SPEAKER_01:

One can I say one more thing really quick about my eight areas. So when I look back at those monthly, like, so I write out my goals for the year, but I rank them like okay, how is home and spaces between a one and ten? And so I look at that and it helps me see like what actually needs my attention and where the Lord is leading me, like through praying, like, okay, God, here are these eight areas. How's family life right now? How's our time together, our dates, our time with our kids? You know, is that a five? That's important.

SPEAKER_00:

So we don't rank them, you just like set each one to a scale, kind of. Yeah, like where am I at in these areas? Oh, yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_01:

I guess that's one thing's important.

SPEAKER_02:

No, like not rank and stuff. No, which there's can be some value to that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, this is like how's this area of my life going? Like, is this plan dying kind of a thing? Which does it need to be one? One to ten, one to five. One to ten.

SPEAKER_04:

And so, like this feels like a fun date night activity. Are you gonna share that uh article you were doing?

SPEAKER_01:

I will share the resource. I actually use their goal setting planner, so I can share that too. It the guys went like it's very pretty, but you can't pretty pretty well. Yeah, yeah. This is real girly looking.

SPEAKER_02:

That was released. We're professional.

SPEAKER_01:

For me, I need to see that because I tend to I can be busy and super productive and and feel like I'm killing it, but then all of a sudden feel really depleted. And it's usually when I look at that, I see why. Like, oh yeah, I haven't had a lot of time with my husband. I don't feel connected to him. Yeah, I'm out of balance and I'm heavy in one side, right?

SPEAKER_04:

So this is such I think men really struggle with that out of balance. It sounds like ladies do too. But for us, it's like, man, there's some like stuff I don't really know. What to do with at home, but at work it's a little more clear to do and I know what to do, or at least I can make it look like I know what to do, and like there's a whole bunch of like fake productivity, yes, and and it feels really important and everything else. And so, like, sometimes we can just get caught up in that, or you know, when you're young, I I assume most people listening to this are younger than us. Like, you can get some physical gains.

SPEAKER_06:

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Right. You go to the gym, you get some supplements, like you can get some physical gains where you like look better, quote unquote, according to the world standards. You can get some gains, and so but you're getting out of balance, you're missing the other things. That's what I love thinking about all those different roles and responsibilities and or those different areas like you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02:

That's great.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And on that topic of why guys typically know what to do, they're confident about their work, they're doing their thing there, but then their home life struggles, they're trained. They have roles and responsibilities at work, they know what their job description is. Hopefully. And so hopefully, hopefully you know what you're doing, whatever job you're doing. If you're an electrician and you don't know what you're doing, you may not be an electrician very long. Right. So, yeah, you're you're trained to do those things. And you spend a lot of time working at your trade. Right. What we need to do is break out of that sometimes or realize we need to read up, train up on what we're doing at home and actually devote time to it. Okay, so we've spent some time talking about why we're we've set plans and goals and and resolutions, how to do it. Some resources are gonna be in in the in the show notes, and we've shared a few steps here. I want to know from you guys what's worked in the past that you're doing, that you're just like I know all of you are too humble to be like, I'm killing it at this, but like some things that are going well. What are some of those things that are going well? And how how did you get there? And then what are some things that just crashed and burned? Like you tried this thing and it just fell apart. Maybe this is a time when you're gonna like re re-engage with it, or maybe it's like, no, it crashed and burned and it's okay because it didn't need to be in my life. Like, what are some of those things for y'all?

SPEAKER_01:

I feel like somebody else needs to share because I feel like on a couple episodes ago, I crashed and burned in multiple areas.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'll just say two years ago, no, two or three, maybe three years ago, I had signed up to start. You know, just some kind of it was like a health fitness group. I had to pay a lot of money, and I was like, I am going if I pay the money, then I will do it. You know, but then it was very, it was just a lot of like planning and yeah, it was already a crazy season, and I crashed and burned within I don't even know if I made it a week, you guys. And I paid a lot of money that was it's supposed to be like six to eight weeks or something, but that was a crash and burn. But I will say some good things about just I think over the years I've learned a lot about what works and what doesn't work as far as er, I don't know, I guess what I need. And I have learned that I need time with the Lord. I am desperate for that. And I go to work early, like I leave for my job at 6 a.m. 6 a.m. to 6 15 a.m. And so you know, it kind of was always a thing of like, man, it's just so early to get up. But I I've totally changed the way I view that. Like I I mean, once you get in a rhythm of it and make it a discipline, it's so easy to get up. And it's such a an important part of my day that I before I would try to figure out like, well, how can I do it in the afternoon or the evening because it's just so early, but building it into my morning rhythm and realizing how desperate I am for it before my day starts is it's just not like a it's just like I need it. It's my food, it's my you know, and I would say the same for physical activity. We two years ago we started doing that just because it was so good for our mental health to remember that we need to move our bodies and and in a stressful time. And so it's just even a non-stressful time, it's just been a really good thing.

SPEAKER_04:

I was gonna talk about how we came out of that. Like Kelly had this idea of yeah, buy this thing, she's gonna do that. And and honestly, part of why it didn't go well was she did it by herself. She told me about it, but she she did it by herself. Yeah. I also really struggled after the military. Somebody we've we've gotten some questions about like post-military life. And so, like post-military, I struggled with my weight and I struggled to exercise. And so the thing that came out of that is Kelly and I exercised together in the morning way too early. She leaves the house at six, so it's before that. Way too early in the morning. But the other thing is we started I would I wouldn't even call it working out, especially when when we started. It was just like building in that habit, building in that rhythm. So, like some things we need to do with another person, some things you do by yourself, so we do our Bible reading by ourselves. But the other one, like, start with something you believe that you could actually do.

SPEAKER_06:

Yes.

SPEAKER_04:

The other thing we started with, just to give you like we said we are going to do this all of January. Like, whatever we do. I mean, if we get up again after if we get up and do like a squat, like one body weight squat, like okay, at the time that we committed, like we did it every day. We took a day off for Sunday, but like every day for January. Because January's hard, it's cold, it's dark, it's you know, whatever. And so just some of those things, do it with somebody else if you can. Start with January.

SPEAKER_00:

We're gonna do January.

SPEAKER_01:

What I love about that is it's tangible, right? Like when we're goal setting, I think a lot of people have this grand idea that they have to set the goal for all of 2026. Something that has failed for me in the past is just that. Like this goal must be worked on all year long.

SPEAKER_06:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I have goals that shift and change. Like, dude, like you said, January. Okay, well, what am I looking at the first three months of the year? What do I want to grow in? And then of course I have long-term goals, but I like to call those long-term ideas. Like, I have five-year goals, sure, but it's more of an idea. By the time I hit five years, God shifted and changed that and shaken it and tossed it out and done all different things with it. But I'm on a trajectory. So I love that you're saying, like, that's breaking that down into a tangible. Like, if I work at this, I can accomplish this. I think a lot of people quit because they never have that sense of accomplishment. They're doing something that they cannot do in the amount of time they've given themselves. It's unimaginable.

SPEAKER_04:

Like those, but right, I would say write down and talk about those big ideas as well. Like, write those down, but then okay, what can I do in January? What can I do in quarter one, whatever the case is? Like, but so talk about those ideas because you're right, God'll move it, God'll shape it, life will happen, military will happen. But what are we moving towards? You know, I just I use the example of you know, learn Russian. You you're not going to be conversant in Russian by if you've never done it by you know April 1st. No, yeah. But, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that's interesting because uh this podcast was a long-term goal, right? For all of us, like at date nights, we have talked about it for years. Like, when did we start talking about it?

SPEAKER_02:

I think it was over a year ago.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, it was a long time ago out of the mirror.

SPEAKER_04:

I would say it was over a year before we started.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, oh yeah. And I don't even think we had we knew we wanted to podcast, like, oh, this would be cool. But I think like shifting and changing, right? God showed us clarity, like you said, clarity.

SPEAKER_04:

And the origin of it was actually we started doing date nights because of a conversation.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so me and Rick at the end of a year, we had gotten together and went on a walk, and we were both sharing our struggles of how we were lonely, and we felt like I mean, I knew it was like Satan, but just like saying you have no friends.

SPEAKER_01:

It was December 2023.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, and we we just decided like we we do have friends, we're each we're friends.

SPEAKER_02:

We're friends, and Brian and I got together and we were like, you know, we see each other because of ministry stuff, right? But our wives haven't gotten together in a long time. Like, this isn't good.

SPEAKER_04:

That's funny that you thought through all that. What I got was my wife said, I'm going to walk with Brittany. And, you know, eight hours later she became home. And I was like, and she's like, and I had been signed up for a monthly double date. And but that was good. That was building a habit. That was a habit of friendship, that was a habit of togetherness. What a sweet gift that has been to me. And it's been an amazing gift, and it turned into a podcast. But we also, when we started the podcast, we said we don't want to replace that good thing. And so we still do the the double date that's not in front of microphones, and then we've added this thing that hopefully is helpful to you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's good. Any last parting thoughts, guys, before I close it down here? Because we are out of time.

SPEAKER_04:

We have all year, Josh.

SPEAKER_00:

I think one thing is just keep our eyes on the Lord. Like instead of yeah, what the world's telling us we need to do for the new year, whatever. Like, we want to grow more like Christ. Yeah. So sometimes I feel like it can just be simplified in a way, like asking ourselves, is this gonna make me more like Christ? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's really good. I like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Many people look at Bible reading plans during this time of year. So if you're also doing that, taking a look at it, when you get going on it, remember the why you're doing it. So many people fall by the wayside uh when they start getting into like Leviticus and Deuteronomy and stuff, you know, February, March, and and whatnot. And you you fall by the wayside of the why. Just remember, even if you miss a day, it doesn't the timeline doesn't matter as much as the journey and walking with Christ, learning more about him in scripture. And if I have a I have a quick little tidbit on that, I recommend if you're doing it for the first time, read the New Testament first. That creates the habit, it gets you to understand who Jesus is. Then when you read the Old Testament, it really comes to life as to who it's pointing to. And with that, let's uh let's close out. And man, I appreciate you guys being with us. Make sure you put some questions on Instagram if you have questions you'd like us to answer and make some good plans, make some good resolutions, and make sure you're doing it for the Lord. We love y'all.