Happy New Year! What Are You Putting Your Faith in?
It seems every year we anticipate what the new year will bring, as if flipping the page on the calendar could SOMEHOW magically change our current existence. It seems so ridiculous, but every year we look forward to the new year and leaving the old behind. A fresh, new beginning! This is going to be the year! We can’t wait to see what this new year will hold for us!
Leaving 2020 BEHIND seems to be a priority on everyone’s top ten list of things to look forward to. However, when we live life with this mindset what are we putting our faith in? We aren’t trusting God! I’m not really sure what exactly we are putting our trust in. It is slightly ridiculous to believe that once the clock strikes midnight on December 31 that all will be returned to sanity and we can start afresh. Phew! Like 202o was just some horrific nightmare! Now we can shut the door and move on! Not so much. There are so many things we can put our faith in, maybe new political leadership, fiscal year, etc. A fresh start for the new year; new resolutions and new ambitions for this to be the year that x, y, z happens. Roll out the list of the resolutions and get after them, but I for one have never kept a single well intended resolution.
Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.
-Oscar Wilde
If we put our faith in all the fleeting things of this world, or the new seasons brought to us by turning the calendar page it won’t take too long to realize that we will be disappointed and let down. So how about this year we remember where we should have been putting our faith all along….in our Lord. God NEVER changes.
Hebrews 13:8
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
It is often said if you feel distant from God, it isn’t God who moved – IT IS YOU! Why don’t we trust that GOD is going to make this year a year of new beginnings for us, put our trust in HIS power to overcome addictions and distractions and change our circumstances. We can choose to place our focus on God instead of all the things of this world that promise us a fresh beginning. It seems much more logical to trust God than one calendar page from another!
If we spend time in prayer, reading his word and worship it will change us from the inside out. It WILL be a new beginning. It will be a transformation and progression each day into becoming more Christlike. At the end of 2021 you will be able to look back and see what God has done in your life because you chose to invest your time and faith in GOD, not the calendar or the latest self-help trend. It hardly seems worth putting faith in anything the world tells us we should believe in anyway. God’s ways are NOT the ways of the world. God has great plans for us if we only redirect our focus on him and away from what our flesh would lead us to focus on.
Isaiah 55:8-9
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. 9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Pray into this. What CREATIVE ways can you spend more time with God without feeling overwhelmed with another responsibility that you won’t live up to? What if you listen to worship music during your commute or while you clean house? What if you spend as much time reading scripture as you spend on social media? If you you can listen to YouTube or stream podcasts while you work this has been a TREMENDOUS blessing to me to listen to sermons and podcasts while working. I have gained so much from listening to God’s word while I do my job. It is time I have regained to be with the Lord that were lost hours fumbling around with the thoughts in my head before.
Let 2021 represent a refreshing, a new beginning if you desire. However put your faith where it belongs, in the power of our Almighty Father. Press into our Lord and he will change you from the inside out. Trust in God, put your faith in God, spend your time focused on God’s heart and watch your world transition. There will be no confusion about where the tangible transformation of your mind and soul came from…..and there will be no question in your mind that it was NOT from turning a calendar page.
We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for POTENTIAL.
-Ellen Goodman
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