Expecting the Unexpected 🤝

With each new year comes an in-between period between Christmas and New Year’s to look over your shoulder and reflect on what happened over the last 365 days, while simultaneously looking ahead to what may be in store for the next 365 days.

There are many frameworks and question guides available online to help with this process, and in years past, I used a few of them.

However, as each year has passed, I have started to realize that sometimes what I expect to happen in the next year doesn’t, and sometimes what I don’t expect to happen in the next year does. And no question guide, word of the year, or framework can prepare you for that.

Now, that doesn’t mean the question guides don’t have their place. I think they do.

But I think preparing our hearts and minds for the expected and the unexpected of the coming year, alongside resolutions and goals, may be just as valuable.

We each have jobs, relationships, places, and rhythms that made the jump with us from 2025 to 2026. And we expect them to make the journey with us into 2027.

These are expected aspects of life.

However, with the coming of each new year, there is a temptation to control the expecteds rather than steward them with an open hand. We draft plans. We create goals. We choose a word. All good stuff. But we leave little room for surrender to God and yielding to His Spirit with the expecteds in 2026.

I write the above as someone who struggles with the above. And in my fight to release control, I have found Psalms 127:1 quite helpful.

• It reads, “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain” (Psalms 127:1, NIV).

Unless the Lord builds the expecteds He has given to us in 2026, then we labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the expecteds He has given to us in 2026, then we watch over them in vain.

Start with the surrender of your expecteds in 2026.

Regardless of how well we plan for the year, we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. The unexpected will occur.

James speaks directly to this saying, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow” (James 4:13, NIV).

Yet so often we don’t prepare our hearts and minds for the unexpected heading into a new year. So, to fight that, below are some truths to ground us as we expect the unexpected in 2026.

• “You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that’” (James 4:14, NIV).

• “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34, NIV).

• “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1, NIV).

In summary, surrender plans, don’t worry or boast about them.

And remember this for the unexpected —

• “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps” (Proverbs 16:9, NIV).

• “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails” (Proverbs 19:21, NIV).

We plan. But the Lord will establish our steps this year. His purpose will prevail in 2026.

Regardless of the expected and the unexpected, our souls are being formed into something. Even Jesus, God in human flesh, experienced this.

Luke 2:52 reads, “and Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52, NIV).

Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, and favor. His soul was formed over time.

So, if Jesus was being formed, then as we turn the page into a new year, it is equally as important that we be mindful of how we are being formed, too.

I think a great place to start is praying through Luke 2:52, that we too would grow in godly wisdom, stature, and favor in 2026. At the end of the day, who we become is more important than what we accomplish (or don’t accomplish).

Each new year brings expected and unexpected situations. Alongside goals, prepare your hearts and minds for them, while pondering who you hope to become by the end of 2026.

As always, let us know how we can help you navigate your world as you navigate the world.

In Your Corner.

See you next Tuesday!