The Quiet Reordering

When God Rearranges Your Desires

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Wishing every one of my beautiful readers a Happy New Year! Welcome to January 2026 and may God bless each of you richly with deeper personal intimacy with Him in the coming year.

While excitement for the fresh, new start of another year urges me to ignite the fires of productivity, I am choosing a soft launch to the year.

If you feel weary with the performance and self-improvement treadmill and want to join me, read on, I have some resources for you too at the end!

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In their hearts humans plan their course,
but the Lord establishes their steps.

Proverbs 16:9-NIV

We love starting the year with plans, lists, and a sense of direction and purpose. But sometimes God invites us into a different beginning—one in rhythm with the winter season of rest.

In the quiet reordering of this season, God rearranges our priorities, desires, and pace through rest rather than effort.

In harmony with winter, we find space for noticing what no longer nourishes our souls, and what is coming to life within. In a softer January, we open to God’s reordering of our inner world in ways striving can never accomplish.

Though counter cultural, I believe January, as the first month of each new year is not for bolting out of the starting gate, racing toward ill-formed goals and resolutions, no matter how well intentioned.

Rather January offers a time of rest, reflection, and refinement under God’s infallible guidance.

A new year represents fresh, blank pages, and the temptation to fill them feels energizing. But I have found holding space for the empty page of a new year without the need to fill it, creates opportunity for meaningful becoming instead of hurried happening.

Photo I captured during a recent snow

Societal voices insist we shift into hustle mode with the flip of a calendar page, armed with goals designed to improve our appearance, finances, careers, and just about every other area of our lives.

Especially in challenging or painful seasons, adding the need for overhauling areas of our lives which fall short increases our soul burden.

I remember the time I sprinted into January armed with an audacious list of goals, resolutions and improvements, including the popular, “things I want more of, and things I’m leaving behind”. In a word, CHANGES, in capital letters, garnished with urgency.

Despite my full head of steam, before long, I not only stumbled, I crashed.

Sitting with the reality that I accomplished little, while heaping shame on the casualty pile, God invited me into a reset. With deep gentleness, He revealed the truth about my misguided notions.

My expectations couched in ambitious goals failed to consider my soul’s deepest needs. As is true for many, the holiday season holds exhaustion, and often sadness and grief. Navigating the season for me, requires mammoth energy and a good deal of emotional management.

Creating a robust list of expected change, with a launch date of January 1st, dealt my ravished soul an almost mortal blow.

Goals, resolutions, and improvements in their simplicity are desires, and while desires are not sinful, they can be misguided.

Influenced by guilt over falling short or not measuring up, by what others in our close circles choose to pursue, by the latest societal norm peddled everywhere, or our own discontent with ourselves and our lives, unrefined desires compel us into fool’s errands at best.

Surrendering to a season of rest, reflection and refinement creates space for God to reorder misguided desires. Through the process of quiet reordering, God gently aligns our hearts with His. Though the process may result in abandoning some desires, the purpose of God’s rearranging is the refinement, not removal of our desires.

Photo I captured of our yard and deck

My greatest lesson from the time I described earlier was authentic awareness. In my slower pace with God, I became able to view my desires from a posture of rest and reflection. Which in turn enabled me to make authentic choices for the coming year, while surrendering my desires to God for His refining care.

Commit to the Lord whatever you do,
and he will establish your plans.

Proverbs 16:3-NIV

If pushing ahead with goals and resolutions that somehow feel like you are wearing someone else’s clothes, or feeling guilty because you have no inspiration for the coming year has you discouraged, here are 3 small steps you can take today.