Set The Tone 2021
The beginning of a new year creates a perfect natural opportunity for a new beginning! Going into 2021, maybe more than ever, people are longing for that. Maybe it’s a new beginning for health, in fitness, with financial goals, relationships or another aspect of your life. We have an annual opportunity to strike while the iron is hot, leverage natural inertia, and set the tone for the upcoming year. New vision, fresh anointing, a creative strategy, bringing ourselves and our leadership to the next level.
I believe that how you start a new year is vital, because how you start your year completely sets the tone for the trajectory of the entire rest of the year. And, how you set the tone carries the habits and disciplines, or lack there of, to help you achieve your hopes, goals, and dreams come the end of the year!
Here are 4 Keys To Setting The Tone that I find in Ruth chapter 1:
1. Be a leader of COURAGE.
Ultimately, the call to lead is a call to courageous endeavors. [Ruth 1:16 “but Ruth replied: don’t plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you.”] Naomi’s husband died and her son died as well. This left both her and her daughter-in-law, Ruth as widows. Being a widow in that setting and culture was an extremely vulnerable and dangerous status.
I can’t begin to imagine the setback Ruth & Naomi faced losing a son and a husband. They needed to set the tone for a new life and a new beginning. This took courage! They couldn’t afford to be timid or shrink back in fear. The struggle was very real for them in that culture - just like many people in our world today are facing difficult challenges and extenuating circumstances.
Just like it did for Ruth, it also takes courage for us to step out of the comfortable land of familiar of doing things the way we have always done them. It involves risk to step towards the destiny-filled land of promise! Don’t be afraid—take courage with you.
Courage, I believe is taking one bold small step at a time. Just like a child learning to walk, sometimes this means doing it afraid! Winston Churchill said it best: “Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” Whatever you find yourself doing, you cannot afford to lost your passion, your excitement, or your joy you once had! Let this be the year you renew your courage.
2. Be willing to COMMIT
[Ruth 1:16 “For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you stay I will stay.”] Naomi had a second daughter-in-law. Her name was Orpah, and she wept as she kissed Naomi goodbye. She left in hopes for a better future. Ruth could have respectfully and honorably done the same. Yet, Ruth had almost a covenant-level commitment to Naomi even after both of their husbands had died. It almost certainly would have been easier and more convenient to leave town and start over on her own. Yet this deep commitment allowed her to stay even when the going got tough.
This is a timely message for leaders in our generation. One of the things that is said even on billboard advertisements across the Twin Cities where I live: “Millennials are lazy.” Inferring that this is a generation of non-committals. Instead of fear of commitment, God is calling a generation to rise up and commit to a cause that is much greater than them. To reject complacency and embody consistency is to exude commitment. At times it involves sacrifice or great personal cost, but in the end, it always pays off!
Ryan Skoog once told me that courage is doing something bold and right, and that endurance was doing it for a long time." I really believe it’s something special when you combine courage and commitment.
3. Become passionate about and participate actively in COMMUNITY
[Ruth 1:16 your people will be my people.] This story is considered by many to be one of the greatest examples of friendship in the bible. Both Ruth and Naomi were courageously committed to the bond of community they shared.
I love what Jim Rohn has popularly said about relationships and their power in our lives: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” This begs the question: Who am I surrounding myself with? Along with: Who am I becoming? Some of the greatest advice there is in the world is to intentionally surround yourself with people who bring out the best in you.
If a pandemic has taught us anything it’s that humans weren’t meant to do life alone. We are all longing for authentic community. Especially the next generation. People are searching everywhere for individuals and groups that they can be vulnerable with to share their needs, and at the same time be the type of action orientated community that serves and meets the needs of others!
Therefore, those of us with callings in the spaces of ministry leadership over young adults have the unique opportunity to foster these types of communities! A perfect time to pioneer a new ministry or take your existing ministry to the next level is setting the tone into this new year! Others of you may want to launch that new side hustle or start that business you’ve always dreamed of with the encouragement and support of a community around you.
I also know the greatest way to discover your calling is together in a community! There are passions God has given you that make you more fully alive than ever before. There are dreams, visions, and plans He downloads through us to make the world a better place!
4. Discover your CALLING
The fact is so many people are wondering why in the world am I on planet earth? This sparks the search for significance in the hearts of many. Rick Warren said in his book The Purpose Driven Life “You cannot fulfil God’s purposes for your life while focusing on your own plans.”And that truly goes hand in hand with what C.S. Lewis said: “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
[Ruth 1:16 “and your God will be my God.”] God has placed you on this earth for a purpose. He was intentional and your existence is not accidental. As followers of Jesus, we know that God has placed eternity in the hearts of humankind. He also has a proven track record of leading faithfully and whispering direction in our lives toward our calling. He was faithful with Naomi, He was faithful for Ruth, He is faithful in this moment today, and He will always be faithful in the future.
A lot of times we view calling as the aspiration of knowing in this present moment the end all be all result of our lives. I think students in both high school and college feel an immense burden to perform and to decide today the ultimate destination of their lives. As if even knowing tomorrow’s headlines, today were remotely feasible. None of us knows the future.
I think our lives will be filled with extreme amounts of purpose and fulfillment when instead of asking the ultimate dreams question, we ask the next right decision question. What is the next right thing I can do? This removes stress, mystery and ambiguity and instead it provides clarity, simplicity, and action.
My prayer is that everyone who reads this article will have a moment of evangelism like Naomi did when Ruth told her “your God will be my God.” Where someone says to us: “your God will be my God” this year! In other words, the life you are living is attractive, desirable, and meaningful and I want to follow you as you follow Christ. This, after all is the call of all Christ followers to share his love, joy, and peace with a world around us that so desperately needs it!
What is God asking you to do to set the tone in 2021?
How are you going to take one courageous step this year? In community? In commitment? In calling?
Who is one person you are praying for currently that they might know the heart of their savior?