My Word for the New Year

How choosing one word can actually help you move through time and space and crisis

Photo by Pavitra Baxi on Unsplash

I’m doing something different this New Year. I’m choosing one, single word that I want to shape my upcoming New Year. In the past, I’ve been resistant to this. I thought: How could one single word capture all that is swirling in my heart of desire. But, this is a good year to try it. And I’m also choosing this one word because of this: I need this word. I need to do this word a lot. Read and on you’ll see why.

Sometimes, we need to find new words to describe our current state of being in the world. I often use the Google app which tells me how a word has been used over the millenniums and when that word was most popular and often written or spoken. The word I’m using for 2024 has low usage in modern and crisis filled times. It just might be that the neglect of this one word has resulted in such dramatic spike in mental illness, church drop outs and depression gone rampant in the world. Perhaps, this is precisely why I feel the need to distill all the possible words into this one word. Perhaps, this is why the image of the animal overloaded and drooping could be a great image to describe you or me—when we don’t do this word! Ok. Ready. Here’s my word:

It’s a word that is used in the New Testament to describe the process of commending someone you care for to God’s great care.  Luke, the biographer of Jesus and of the early church uses the word “commend” when he writes that “But Paul chose Silas and set out, the brothers and sisters commending him to the grace of the Lord.”

verb (used with object)

1. to present, mention, or praise as worthy of confidence, notice, kindness, etc.; recommend: to commend a friend to another; to commend an applicant for employment.

2. to entrust; give in charge; deliver with confidence: I commend my child to your care.

To commend someone, then means to entrust them—to turn them over with confidence to the care of another.

It’s not a word I hear frequently used in today’s culture but it is a word that needs to find a resurrection in usage. Why? Because most people I know, including myself, are carrying around a lot of people in their hearts and are carring a spectrum of problems, traumas and anxieties: aging parents; friends who are depressed; family members who are suffering from anxiety and fear; folks we know that are facing serious illnesses; the crises in the world; wars in Gaza and the Ukraine and so much more.

During the 4th quarter of this past year, Gwen and I counted eight special friends and family members who were in trouble. Some with BIG T trouble going on and others with Little T trouble facing them. But all were concerning. Some were and still are alarming, but all of them are unsettling. We found ourselves talking non-stop about “them.” Wondering how they were doing; worried about the pending medical tests results. It feed anxiety in me and for many years I managed by action—I’d call, visit and pray with friends in trouble. But now, I’m finding myself in a different space and age.

The past few weeks have seen an uptick in our own circles of family and friends facing serious situations. Because we love these people, our tendency has been to take on the weight of their plight onto our shoulders. 

Their burdens become our burdens. I feel the load, liabilities and dread of their world seeping into my world. My eyes can become jaundice discoloring my view and perspective of life. The lines between their trouble and my trouble became blurred. I could not tell where “their” world of troubles and “my” own began and ended. It’s never good when this happens but it happened to me and I’ve been in the carrying “business” all my adult life.

I’ve noticed that I stop and drop everything when a new “Caring Bridge” email is in my inbox. Even to read about the friend who is having the “mother of all surgeries” or has just received word of a Stage 4 diagnosis, I am triggered. I am triggered in an already crowded day and time and I have the tendency to care—perhaps too much.

Can you relate?

It’s a heavy load to carry so many burdens.

It’s a condition anyone in the caring profession knows all to well. Ministers, health professionals, counselors, social workers as well as people feeling sandwiched between aging parents and children in their own various challenges of life. The squeeze; crush and congestion of so much need—so much pressure—so many people who need your care screams for something to be done—something to happen to bring relief.

Learning how to “commend” can help.

To commend is to care but in a different sort of way. For me, perhaps you too, it’s time to find a new way of caring.

To commend is to release someone to God’s care—why? Because when we commend someone to Someone Else—we are releasing them in an act of trust, love and confidence that they will be cared for in ways that we simply cannot care.

To commend is to let go.  To commend is to confess that we are not God. To commend is to lessen the burden on the heart inside of the one who cares.

So, try this:

Commend your adult children to God. Release them to God’s oversight and care.

Commend your aging parents to God.

Commend your business to God.

Commend your ministry to God.

Commend your children to God.

Commend your child or grandchild with special needs to God.

Commend your work to God.

Commend your next year to God.

Commend. Commend. Commend.

It sounds good, doesn’t it.  But when I say “commend”, I am not saying to give up all responsibility—of   course not. We can do our part. But, doing our part does not mean that taking on their issues—their problems—their vexing situation allowing our very breath to be sucked out of our lungs leaving us flattened emotionally and zapped of energy.

In my work with thousands of church leaders across the globe, I often remind pastors and ministers that Jesus said, “I will be build my church.”---meaning that the pastor, church planter or global worker simple doesn’t not have to become a workaholic in doing; doing; and more doing. Someone else will build the church and you can just be human.  No one, regardless of their role and vocational position can take on what is not theirs to take on. It’s not healthy. It’s not sustainable. It adds us to BIG T trouble for the caregiver.

That’s it—to commend is my confession that I will choose to be human and not try to be God or Jesus Junior.

To commend someone to the Sacred CareGiver is to choose to be human and remain human—no matter how gifted; how extraordinary and how awesome you think you are in your skills, love or capacity.

The definition of “commend” again means: to entrust; give in charge; deliver with confidence: I commend my child to your care. 

Sit with this phrase: to commend is to deliver with confidence.  To commend means to turn someone over to God that you may have the tendency to try to be god for in their current situation.  To commend, means to not become co-dependent—removing a boundary from their life to your life and that you cannot find where your life ends and their life begins. That’s not healthy at all.

To commend someone is to entrust someone you love and care for into the care of God.  When you commend someone to God—you are releasing them to Someone who can care for your loved one in a way you simply cannot.

Doesn’t it just make so much sense to then to use this old word: commend?

I want to commend my 14 grandchildren to God every single day. To commend them in my heart doesn’t have to look like long drawn out, wordy prayers. I can just commend them.

I want to commend my sons in the military and all members of the military.

I want to commend those who suffer.

I want to commend those who care.

I want to commend those who do not care in the way I think they should.

I want to commend every student in middle school because for sure—that age faces a great risk in a great jungle of human development.

So you see, to commend can bring a freedom and give permission for us to be human and permission for God to be God. It doesn’t mean I  have to agree with God on why people suffer. It just means, I can let go of my need to know why—when no one has ever none why.

How can you practice a new breath prayer each moment when you feel a  need to fix or take on something that you just can’t fix. Try to commend. Try to commend them to a Place and Someone you can care in ways  we just can’t.

To help me re-enforce my new word for the New Year, I have fleshed out a poem which is really a sort of prayer. As you read it, see what stirs up and if it helps, in the comments, leave one sentence about someone or something that you are going to COMMEND to God in this New Year.

And more, if you want to adopt this one word as your word, then be my companion in this great experiment.

Friends, please help me by using the new “Share” button I’ve added here. Someone wrote me this morning, “Steve, thank you for your ministry of words.” I appreciated this note because I do consider my words here a particular, if not peculiar kind of ministry. Your sharing will help get the word out. Further, if you can subscribe, please do. It’s an act of encouragement, “commending me” in my work and ministry and great high fives for all I’m attempting in this new seasson of my life. Like I often say, though, if you’re not in a position to subscribe and become a “Paid Subscriber” then just write us at info@pottersinn.com and we’ll add you, no questions asked.

Photo by Maddi Bazzocco on Unsplash