I Know What I Need to Be Doing
and that's exactly the problem
Every year around this time, I try to pray three prayers. They are conversation-starters, initiating exchanges that sometimes last for months, sometimes even longer. The prayers are three distinct yet related questions, each inviting Jesus into my intentions for the New Year. And it’s crucial that I pray each of them with curiosity and openness.
But that’s the hard part.
Because I struggle with those things.
I tend to rush into every new year loaded down with so many fears and plans that it’s almost impossible to be curious and open — gotta get that pain checked out, gotta keep up the exercise regimen, gotta get this and that done at work, gotta get that trip planned and that other one, too. The idea of asking Jesus for his input on my priorities and how I should spend my year feels a bit like inviting disagreement and disapproval. It feels like asking for more stress on top of everything else that’s stressing me already.
I know what I need to be doing.
I know what I want to be doing.
I don’t want to be told any different.
Writing those words down right there, I can see it. I can hear it. I sound like a child who doesn’t know any better. I sound like someone who hasn’t yet learned how wrongheaded this kind of heart posture is. But I have learned it. I’ve lived enough life both with and without Jesus. I should know better.
I have prayed this set of three prayers several times over the past 15 or so years. But the last time I prayed them with eagerness and earnestness was in 2023, so I’ll tell you about that.
The first of the three questions is risky: Jesus, is there a word or phrase that could serve as a beacon for me in this coming year? It’s dicey because it could be anything.
Three years ago, when I prayed this question, I sat in silence for a few minutes. And sensed nothing. But then, a few days later, as I was dashing out of the house for work, thinking about my calendar and the kids and everything that wasn’t my prayer, a word came into my mind. With. Having only a vague sense of what it might mean for me and the year ahead, I knew that was it. I knew it in my heart the moment the word was whispered into my thoughts. “With” would be my word for 2023.
A few days later, I prayed the second prayer. Jesus, who are my people for the year?
This one is risky, too, because it allows Jesus to weigh in on my plans and decisions about friendships and acquaintances. It invites him to weigh in on which relationships I should lean into over the next twelve months — and the ones from which I should perhaps lean away. In confident possession of an answer to my first prayer question, though, I had an easier time sensing his voice this time.
When I closed my eyes in the silence, I saw my father’s face.
My dad is 89, and we’re close. When Jenn and I got married, he was one of the two best men at our wedding. Subsequently, he and I worked together for more than fifteen years, investing in Silicon Valley high-tech companies. But after I left venture capital for ministry, we drifted a bit. Jenn and I got busy raising a family of five and writing and running our ministry. Though he and I texted and talked on the phone several times each week, the time we spent face-to-face had waned — even though we lived in the same Northern California town.
But there was no doubt about it, I saw his face in my prayer. So, given my many commitments and a hard-to-change schedule, I had a follow-up question for Jesus.
Okay, Jesus. I know what you want me to do, but I’m not sure how it’s going to work. I’m going to need more of your wisdom on this one. How do you see me doing this?
And what came to mind was lunch. A once-a-week meal at a local place my dad likes.
I immediately texted my dad and proposed we meet at Julie’s Place every Friday for lunch, and he was thrilled. So, that’s what we have been doing for the past three years. And it’s been great. Sometimes Jenn joins us, and we’ll talk about our lives. He catches me up on the renovations he’s doing on his house. He tells me about the latest update to his Tesla. We’ll talk about family, friends, and football — always football. NFL and college. Sometimes, we go for a long time, until we run out of things to discuss. Sometimes, we call it after only an hour because he needs to get to the gym. (He goes to the gym regularly at almost ninety. I hope I’m doing that too when I am his age.)
These meetings are never perfect, of course. There are things he does that irritate me. I say many things that annoy him. But it’s good for our hearts to be together.
With. With my dad.
Shortly after I prayed my second prayer, I went ahead and prayed the third: God, what spiritual practice would you like me to engage in more this year?
This one is just as risky as the other two. Whatever the answer is, it’s going to require a commitment of time — and time is something I never have in abundance. Therefore, I asked this one with some trepidation, but I sensed the answer almost immediately. It was a kind answer: silence. With my eyes closed, I saw an image. I saw myself getting up early a few days each week, walking the quiet streets of my neighborhood alone and in silence.
So, on and off over the past three years, this has been my morning routine: I grab my phone, a set of earbuds, a Field Notes notebook, a pen, and, lately, my Rogue weighted vest. I queue up a short devotional (usually from Pray As You Go) and head off in whatever direction feels right in the moment. When the devotional runs out, I take out the earbuds and listen to the ambient quiet of the morning.
This time of silence allows me to be with God in a way that I love. I love moving. I love the cold. I love the solitude. And I love the thoughts that come to me when I’m not filling it with news or information or distraction or work or prayer or anything else. Ideas come about Rapt, about our nonprofit, Gather Ministries, about my marriage, about my kids, and about my men’s group — and they are good ones. They tend to be the kind I’d never have on my own.
With. With God.
So, it’s 2026, and I’m eager to pray these questions for the New Year. “Eager” may be a little strong, since we’re already a week into the year and I haven’t done it yet. But I’m going to pray them this week, and I can’t wait to see what Jesus has in store. What I know for sure is that I’ll have better stories to tell than if I go it alone.
Justin and Jennifer Camp created “Embark: Your New Year Launch Kit.”
Sample ➼ “The Next Right Thing” by Emily P. Freeman
Sample ➼ “Whisper” by Mark Batterson
Sample ➼ “Sacred Rhythms” by Ruth Haley Barton
We updated Rapt’s ‘Best of’ lists this week. Lots of new stuff!
Mark Freiburger is a filmmaker who has written, directed and produced many films and commercials, including “The Greatest Super Bowl Ad of All Time.”
Eric Geiger is the senior pastor of Mariners Church in Southern California, where he lives with his wife, Kaye, and their two daughters, Eden and Evie.
Richard Kannwischer is the pastor of Peachtree Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and author of a new book, “Cultivate.”
P.S. Who should we interview next? Click here to let us know. And what new question would you like us to ask them? Click here to submit your suggestion.
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised.
But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.
You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but he is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” —C. S. Lewis
Will you join us in doing the exercises in Embark?
We’re in this together, my friend, and I am very grateful for that.
Editor-in-Chief, Rapt Interviews & Wire for Men
Co-executive Director, Gather Ministries
Thank you for sharing! As I read along your article, I was encouraged to ask questions 2&3; it has been my practice for many years to ask only the first question. I’m scared if I will measure up since I already have my answers. It’ll boil down to my willingness to let Jesus transform me!