Be Thou My Vision: Heading in the New Year

New Beginnings

For most people, December is a month full of cheer, decorations, delight, and festivities.

As the month starts to wind down, the last few weeks of the year bring increasing levels of excitement and anticipation at the new year to come.

The hint of freshness and renewal just around the corner sparks a newfound endurance, hope, and strength. A literal “new beginning” is just within reach.

For those of us who are planning-obsessed, we’ve already started our process of creating New Years goals. We’re planning our ideal selves and carefully laying out a game plan to achieve the successful lifestyle we’ve mapped out that we’ve achieving for sure this new year.

There’s plenty of inspiration going around this time of the month as we close in on 2024, but have you thought about taking into consideration the True Source of inspiration?

Old Hymns, New Vision

Growing up, one of my favorite hymns has always been Be Thou My Vision. As a child, I enjoyed the tune and found it an easier hymn to sing along to. However, as an adult who continues to come back to this song, I can now understand the lyrics in a deeper way than I could in my adolescence when I would get caught up in all the thou’s and art’s.

This hymn is a great reminder that God is all we need in life. He is our Vision, our Treasure, and our Delight.

In fact, this hymn has a lot to tell us about our goals for the New Year.

God is Who we should be looking at for our inspiration during our New Year’s resolutions planning. Jesus is our guide and role model that we should mold our lives after.

While we’re passionately curating and designing our “new year, new me” vision boards on Pinterest, let’s remember to seek inspirating from the one true Source: God and His Word.

In Psalm 43:3, the Psalmist writes, “Send Your light and Your truth; let them lead me. Let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to Your dwelling place.”

When you think of the goals you want to achieve this year, ask God to give you His guidance and truth.

Rather than planning your new “life routine” that follows worldly aspirations, choose to craft a lifestyle that is guided, informed, and motivated by His light and Word. We are to imitators of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1) and this transformation comes from renewing our mind in His Word daily.

Greatest Desire

In Be Thou My Vision, the lyrics reveal how the writer desires for God to be everything to him, “Not be all else to me, save that Thou art”.

In the writer’s view, everything else in this world doesn’t matter, only God and following His lead. Instead of stressing out about the New Year and trying to be better in x, y, and z in your life, let your goal be to know God better. Focus on letting the knowledge of His love and resurrection overwhelm and change you.

It is important to remember to seek the Kingdom of God first, and all the extra “things” will be added to us (Matthew 6:33). All the goals, new habits, lifestyle routines, and successes that we desire for the new year follow second behind the One we should be totally focused on pursuing.

Over the next few days leading up to the New Year, as you consider the resolutions and goals to set for yourself, look to God for guidance. Let Him be your Vision.

There are several different versions of Be Thou My Vision. Below are the lyrics to one of the English versions of the song, and the one I grew up singing to in Sunday worship:

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.
Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tow’r:
Raise Thou me heav’nward, O Pow’r of my pow’r.
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heav’n’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.
Dallán Forgaill/Eleanor Hull

Feeling Inspired?

Let your 2024 vision be this: focus on God. Let Him be your Wisdom, your Vision, your Aspiration, and and your Admiration. Not only at the start of the new year, but throughout your journey.

Pray this hymn over your New Year’s goals and intentions:

Heavenly Father, as I reflect on this past year, I’m comforted to see how You have guided and protected me. At the times when I did not understand what You were doing or why I was going through some of things I’ve gone through this year, I see how You’ve had Your hand on everything. Although there are still some parts of this past year, some hurts, some trials, some questions remaining, I offer them all up to You. As I enter into 2024, I pray that You would be my Vision, my Wisdom, my True Word. The world is full of pain, sorrow, and scary news as the days go by. Only You, Lord, know what is to come in 2024. Don’t let me be distracted by the negativity around me. Don’t let me fall prey to the trap of comparison as I look at my life and try to measure up against the life of someone else I feel is successful. Remind me that Your presence is my my light, my joy, and my delight. Remind me that You are my Dignity and my battle Shield as the darkness of this world threatens to close in around me. I thank You Father that Your presence is with me always and that whatever this year may bring, You will still be my Vision and the Ruler of all. As I look forward to the year ahead, I bring all my goals and plans and lay them at Your feet. May I be guided by Your will and direction. Amen.
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