Dear Reader,

For much of my early adult life, I was the kind of person who set ambitious goals at the start of every year—goals to pray more, give more, read more, exercise more, volunteer more. By the end of the year, it was often a graveyard of good intentions. While this continues to be a struggle for me in different areas of life, over time I’ve learned that systems are better than goals. For example, if I want to read the Bible consistently from cover to cover, I’ve learned I need a Bible-reading plan. If I want to save more money, I’ve learned I need a budget and need to automatically save a percentage of our income. If I want to catechize my children, I need to establish a daily pattern of singing songs (we do this after breakfast).

In his book Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones (Avery, 2018), James Clear popularizes this concept of systems. Many of us have unrealistic goals and therefore grow discouraged when we fail. We’re not all Don Carson and read 500 books (sort of) a year, but we can read 20 pages a day. As Clear argues, we need a system in place that allows us to read this amount each day.

This will require intentionality. For some, it will require waking up earlier, before the craziness of the day begins. For others, it will require removing distractions—disabling phone notifications, unsubscribing from Netflix, or unplugging the TV. More than a lofty goal (“I will read 50 books this year!”), we need systems: daily habits that help us grow as readers. 

Reading books isn’t the pinnacle of Christlikeness. But in a world of reactive consumerism, mindless entertainment, and social-media outage, reading can help us intentionally live as disciples of Christ. At the start of an already-tumultuous new year, this isn’t a bad place to begin.

Happy reading!

Ivan

Ivan Mesa

Editorial Director