A New Year Reset

A New Year Reset: Learning to Be Quiet Before the Lord

The start of a new year often feels like standing at a crossroads. We look back on what has been and ahead to what might be, carrying with us equal parts hope and exhaustion. Resolutions are made. Plans are drawn up. And yet, beneath all the activity, many of us sense a deeper need—not to do more, but to reset.

When technology stops working properly, the first advice we’re usually given is simple: reset the device. Turn it off. Start again. Get back to the basics. Over time, things drift, slow down, and stop functioning the way they were designed to work. Sometimes what’s needed isn’t a new feature or an upgrade, but a return to what is fundamental.

The same is often true of our spiritual lives.

A Weary People in a Noisy World

The past several years have been disorienting. Routines were disrupted. Certainties shaken. Many of us learned how quickly life can feel out of control. In response, we did what people often do—we got busy. We worked harder, worried longer, filled our minds with information, and tried to regain control through sheer effort.

But busyness is not the same thing as faithfulness. And activity is not the same thing as peace.

Isaiah speaks to people who knew something about disruption. God’s people were facing exile—displacement, loss, and uncertainty about the future. And yet, in Isaiah 26, God gives them a song to sing. Not after everything is fixed, but while they wait. It’s a song of trust in the midst of instability:

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast,
because they trust in you.
Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.” (Isaiah 26:3–4)

This is the song of God’s people in every age. A song sung not because life is easy, but because God is faithful.

Busy or Quiet?

When waves crash against us—unexpected challenges, cultural upheaval, personal loss—our instinct is often to fight harder. To swim against the current. To stay busy. But Isaiah invites us to a different posture: trust.

There’s wisdom in learning when not to fight the waves, but to let them carry us toward the Rock that does not move. Charles Spurgeon once said, “I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages.” His point wasn’t that suffering is good, but that God uses even difficult circumstances to draw us closer to himself.

The waves are not meant to destroy us. They are meant to drive us toward the One who can hold us steady.

Resetting Our Spiritual Life

A spiritual reset doesn’t begin with more effort. It begins with quiet.

Quiet before the Lord doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means re-centering our lives around who God is and what he promises. Isaiah gives us two anchors for that kind of reset.

First, God’s character and person. When we magnify our problems, God can seem small. But when we magnify God—his faithfulness, mercy, power, and grace—everything else finds its proper size. God is eternal. He is trustworthy. He is present. And he has not changed.

Second, God’s promise of peace. Peace is not something we manufacture. It is something God gives. “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.” As we learn to trust him—to place our confidence in his promises rather than our ability to control outcomes—he quiets our hearts.

This is why prayer, Scripture, stillness, and worship matter so deeply. They are not spiritual chores. They are places where God meets us with peace.

Beginning Again

A new year offers us a gracious invitation—not to fix everything, but to begin again. To reset. To quiet ourselves before the Lord. To trust the Rock who remains steady even when everything else feels unstable.

As you step into this year, consider what it might look like to grow quieter instead of busier. To trust instead of striving. To let God’s Word and promises set the tone for your days.

The world will continue to change. Challenges will come. But the Lord will not change. And he promises peace to those who trust in him.

“Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.”

May this year begin—and continue—anchored there.