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3 Questions to Ask Before the New Year
Advent Reflections on Dreaming, Doubting, and Discernment
Ryan Patrick Murphy
December 20, 2024
Advent is a season to prepare for new beginnings.
On the church calendar, it is technically the beginning of a new liturgical year.
For those of us who follow a Western calendar (which is most of us), the New Year doesn’t begin until January 1st, but the end of our calendar year alongside the Advent themes of Promise and Preparation, Waiting and Prayer, can invite us to take a moment to reflect on how God has been at work in our lives, and how he might be inviting us to dream again in the New Year!
Consider these words from Luke 1:
26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27 to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30 The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”
What dream is God inviting you to dream for 2025 (and beyond)?
At the beginning of Luke’s account of the Christmas story, the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and makes her a promise: she will become miraculously pregnant with the Savior of the world.
This is an incredible promise in so many ways, especially for a young Jewish girl that we can only assume would be honored to participate in Yahweh’s sovereign plan to restore the kingdom — as so many of her ancestors had longed for and prayed for.
The promise literally becomes the miraculous conception, and Mary becomes a symbol for anyone holding a God-sized dream inside of them.
I found Advent a beautiful season to reflect: what promises has God made to me?
What dreams am I dreaming with God?
Is God placing a new dream on my heart, or is there maybe an old dream that God wants to take off the shelf, dust off and remind me of again?
Or, do I find myself in a season so far away from dreams and the promises of God that I need something supernatural — maybe a dream in the night or a visit from an actual angel — to bring a resurrection to the promises of God over my life?
34 Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36 And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.”
What doubts do you have about either yourself or about God’s ability to fulfill his promise?
Any dream that’s big enough will always come with a healthy measure of doubt.
Mary brings two main objections to this prophetic promise from the angel: first, she doubts that she is highly favored. How can God choose me? she asks. Why am I special?
Second, she doubts God’s ability: how can God make me pregnant when I am a virgin? Biology lessons aside, Mary’s objections can help us to name our first two obstacles to overcome when we start dreaming with God — we either doubt that we have what it takes or we doubt that God has what it takes.
Or, if the dream is big enough, we doubt both!
And, I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing!
Can I challenge us — if the dream isn’t big enough to make us doubt either God’s ability or our own — perhaps we aren’t dreaming big enough!
I’m convinced that God wants to dream through us — that he has kingdom works prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10) that the way that God wants to bring about the New Creation — heaven on earth — is by placing Spirit-inspired longings (Romans 8:23) on the inside of us. God wants to dream Kingdom-sized dreams through us that are so big they require a robust Spirit-infused prayer life to accomplish them.
The angel is clear to Mary in response to her doubt — only the Holy Spirit coming upon her will accomplish this dream!
Are you dreaming for anything so big that it would only be possible if God comes through for it?
So - I ask again - is your dream big enough?
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Who is the right person to carry this dream with you?
When Joseph dreamed his dreams in Genesis, he shared prematurely with his brothers and they threw him in a pit. But when he shared with his father, his father pondered the dream in his heart — much like Mary ponders the promise that God has given her.
When I am dreaming, I am always tempted to externally process with everyone — but God’s invitation to me is always to ponder before I process, to hold the promise like a mustard seed and let it grow on the inside of me until it can’t help but be born.
But, that doesn’t mean that we share the dream with no one — it means we discern — who is the right person or community who is meant to carry this dream with me?
In the chapter on the spiritual discipline of Guidance in his famous book Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster argues that “Individual guidance must yield to corporate guidance. There must also come a knowledge of the direct, active, immediate leading of the Spirit together” (175). In other words — who is your community that that you want to invite to discern this dream together?
Some of us are better at dreaming, and some of us are better at birthing — making the dream come to pass and discerning the timing. Perhaps it’s not your season to be a Mary — to hold the dream — but it’s your season to be an Elizabeth to someone else and help them discern the right timing for the dream to be born.
I ask again — what is your God-dream for 2025? What doubts or obstacles stand in the way? And who is meant to carry this dream with you?
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