6 ways I'm using 2026 to deepen my relationship with God

Personally I think springtime is the best time to start something new — after all, the sunshine gets warmer, everything is budding and greening up, and my energy level is definitely higher than it is right now, in the “bleak midwinter.”

Nevertheless January 1 looms large. We're less than a week into the new year, a time that practically begs us to turn over a fresh page, a new leaf.

The idea is putting my daily meeting with God on my calendar as a nonnegotiable appointment.

So let’s talk about how to use 2026 to improve your relationship — with your creator.

Because that is unquestionably the most important task on our to-do list. Full stop.

How to do that? Well some things never change. God gave us an instruction manual, and immersing ourselves in that should be our absolute highest priority. This includes:

• reading the Bible by ourselves;
• reading the Bible with others;
• studying the Bible by ourselves;
• studying the Bible with others;
• memorizing the Bible by ourselves (you can do this with others too, but it’s really more of a solitary pursuit);
• reading what other people have written about the Bible; and
• listening or watching other people teach the Bible (priority one is your weekly sermon by your own pastor — after that, my highest recommendation is the treasure trove of sermons John MacArthur left behind, covering all the New Testament books as well as many Old Testament books and topics).

And of course along with immersion in the Word, which involves absorbing things God wants us to learn and act upon, He also welcomes us into His very presence. We are invited to bring our worship and gratitude to Him in prayer as well as our every request and concern, big or small.

Yeah, it always comes back to those two things.

Prayer and the Word.

And now here are some suggestions about how to prioritize these most important of life activities, now that 2026 is underway ...

The morning meeting

I read this idea this year on Substack (if anyone can remind me of who suggested it, please comment, and I’ll update with the link), and it hit me hard. Probably because I find too much of the day slipping away from me even though I’m not bound to external employment hours, and I know I need to take better control of my time. I’m still wasting too much sand!

The idea is putting my daily meeting with God on my calendar as a nonnegotiable appointment. You can make this appointment any time of the day that works for you, but I do think morning is preferable if you can swing it. This meeting can be as long or brief as this stage of your life requires, but give it a hard start time and a hard stop time (of course you can always tweak this as life changes).

A meeting requires an agenda. You can make a general agenda for all meetings, or you can prepare a separate agenda for each daily meeting. Right now I’m working with an ambitious general agenda, but giving myself grace to skip some items if need be. Here’s my meeting agenda:

1. Read-through-the-Bible time

No, I’m not doing it in a year. I’m doing a three-year plan, because I want to savor what I’m reading and avoid the “check-it-off-for-the-day” mindset.

I used Biblereadingplangenerator.com to create exactly what I wanted to cover — the Bible chronologically as it happened, with the prophets intertwined with other Old Testament passages where they fit chronologically, and the New Testament letters in the order they were written.

I removed Psalms and Proverbs from the plan, then added them back in at a rate of one per day (one Psalm, one chapter of Proverbs). This is because I’ve learned that I need to really slow down to savor the depth and wisdom contained in these two books.

Another benefit of taking three years for this is I have time to read and analyze the study notes in my Bible or even look up other commentary perspectives.

A final part of this agenda item: reading through books about the books of the Bible I’ve completed (this falls under the general category of “reading what other people have written about the Bible”).

2. Daily Bible chunks

There’s probably a more elegant way to say that. But the point is, since read-through-the-Bible time stays in each book of the Bible for quite awhile, I want to dip my toe into other sections as well on a regular basis. Here’s how I’ll divide it up by each day of the week this year, reading generally shorter sections of each book (I use my study Bible’s book outlines to guide me):

• Monday - Torah/OT history (Genesis through Song of Solomon, but minus Psalms and Proverbs, since I’m already in them daily)
• Tuesday - OT prophets (Isaiah through Malachi)
• Wednesday - Gospels
• Thursday - Acts
• Friday - Paul’s letters
• Saturday - other Epistles
• Sunday - Revelation

Notice the emphasis on the New Testament, since my foundational Bible reading will be mostly Old Testament for at least two years!

3. Devotional

If I’m working through a devotional, here’s where I’ll do that.

4. Memorization

I’m trying something new this year! I want to memorize whole big chunks of the Word. I think I’m going to start with the tiny book of Jude, where the topic is false teaching. Very relevant for 2026, I believe.

I’ll study it first before beginning to memorize, a verse or two at a time. I'm planning to do this with my mini-discipleship group, so there’ll be at least two of us working our way through it.

5. Other reading or training

I’ll try to work my way through my enormous “books I’d like to read” list during this time as well, since I have countless spiritually enriching titles collected but not yet read. Or I’ll watch videos I’ve been saving to work through, like Stand to Reason’s excellent apologetics series.

6. Throne room time

This is where we gratefully accept His gracious invitation to come directly to the foot of His throne with all our prayers.

I’ve always tried to systemize my prayers, keeping lists and focusing on different people and needs on different days, but I’ve never journaled my prayers. The reason I’m excited to do this now is this — I’m excited to crack open my new five-year prayer journal.

The idea of this is to write out a prayer (or prayers) for each day, then after a full year of filling the journal, we circle back and fill it out a second year and a third and a fourth and a fifth — reviewing the previous year’s entry as we do.

I can’t wait to see how God works in my life as I review prayers I prayed a year earlier!

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Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A few final thoughts

So that will be my morning meeting in 2026. I will devote a couple of hours to it every day. After all, I’m in the season of life where I can devote more time to this most worthy endeavor, and I’m excited to make that commitment.

I’ve written a few other pieces to help you plan, execute, and enjoy this most marvelous time of the day:

• A basket of God
• Quiet time 101 (although your morning meeting does not have to be quiet!)
• Creating space for God

With the year just beginning, there is nothing more important to lock in for 2026 than your time with God.

Happy (and God-centered) new year to all of you!

A version of this article previously appeared on the She Speaks Truth Substack.