Memory is crazy thing. It exists where nothing was before. This time of year, Thanksgiving and the start of Advent always trigger reflection for me. I have started to see the liturgical new year as a preparation time for the coming calendar year. While reflecting on the last year, I feel thankful for where we are at and how much we’ve accomplished, even if I didn’t meet all of my original goals.
Reflecting on Incremental Progress
One year ago, we had not even moved into our current house. Our family of 5 stayed with family while I prepared our house to be livable.
Almost every weekend seemed filled with some small repair or project to make the house livable, then into a home.
In the moment, it feels as if we aren’t getting much done because the kids take so much of our time and energy. Yet, a quick scroll through our photos shows amazing progress. Even in April, we didn’t even have grass in the yard, and thank God our investment in seeds was blessed by good rains to make it grow.
Many of the projects felt like a lot of work at the time. But reflecting on them now, I feel thankful that we pushed through towards the goal of making our house more a home (see title photo).
A Step at a Time
This kind of incremental progress is a great reminder. In the day to day change appears small, but zoomed out there is a lot of distance covered. This idea reminds me of a story I heard over the summer about two friends who walked across the country. They tracked their journey online and raised money for charity, but a lot of the project was a motivation challenge for them. Each day they would track where they were at and many people followed along.
Moving 20 miles a day for months, you can see a lot of ground and really appreciate it. That is if you have a destination in mind and are moving towards it each day.
Getting the task done takes commitment and dedication.
Where do I want to be? What are my small steps?
My end goal is to be prepared for heaven and to bring my family and others with me, but I don’t think I’ll get there in a day. With that destination in mind, I need to commit to taking each small step every day to getting a little closer.
This weekend, we start Advent and head into the new year of 2026.
I like the idea of making a goal and working away at it all year. However, whenever I make a writing, exercise, or prayer goal, it slips away as my dedication and excitement fade. So how do I keep focused on the task? Smaller goals in bite-sized chunks might help. Now, to apply this to commitment to Jesus and His Church.
Gospel of Luke Advent Challenge
One way to keep our sight focused on Jesus is to read of his life in the Gospels. And one small step towards growing closer to Him would be to make an advent goal rather than an entire New Years resolution.
A friend recently shared with me that their family tries to read a chapter of Luke each day of Advent.
This year there are 25 days of Advent. Luke’s Gospel is 24 chapters long.
One chapter a day gets us through an entire gospel and prepares us for Christmas at the same time.
Applying Short Goals to Larger Life
I hope I can try out this devotion for Advent, and if it goes well I might try to apply this shorter goal method to other areas of life. Maybe I can actually get more done if I zoom in and focus on the next smallest step I can take in order to get closer to the end goal: exercise a little, plan a fun activity for our family, pray a little bit. Each of these activities can be done quickly to get things moving. Then, at the end of next year, I hope to have the good feeling of memory, looking back at a good journey, being closer to God with my family and others.
I’ll come back with an update in December on how this challenge goes. Maybe you want to join in too.
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