Welcome to the New Year everyone! When I think of a new year, I see a blank piece of paper, an unwritten chapter, a new adventure, uncharted territories, roads not yet traveled. There are endless possibilities for you and I in this new year. I don’t know what kind of New Year resolutions you may have promised yourselves for the 2019 year. Whether you want to lose weight, workout, travel, get a new job, get married, have children, eat healthier or any other resolution you have set for yourself. I don’t know your plan of action to see that these resolutions become a reality. But I myself have stopped making resolutions at the beginning of every new year because I got so sick and tired of not seeing myself make them happen.
So now at the beginning of every new year, I make a promise to myself, that promise is to say “yes” to anything God would ask of me, whether that be saying “yes” to a small thing or a big life changing thing. And I promise myself and God that I am going to be accepting of the growth that God has planned for me for this new year. I do not know what that growth will look like because only God knows what I need in my life, what I need less of in my life, the new people I need to meet, the places I need to go and when, the struggles I will need to face, but no matter what God has planned I know that in growth there will always be some discomfort, some change, some growing pains, and in the end I will be a little smoother, God will have shaped me a little differently, chipped away at some things, smoothed over my edges, pushed me to some limits, and stretched me to others. God will do a lot of the growth in us throughout the year, but there are things that only we can do, God cannot work in us if we will not do our part. So, we must pray, reach, pray, go, pray, stay, pray, speak, pray, listen, pray, walk, pray, move, pray, pray, pray. Have you noticed a pattern there? Pray! Listen, for God to do anything in or through us for our lives or for the lives of those around us, first we must pray!
The word says it this way in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18; Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Pray without ceasing! In other words, don’t stop praying! There are places that we will never see if we do no pray, deeper depths and higher heights in God. Jeremiah 33:3 says, Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. There are whole worlds of new things that we would miss out on if` we do not seek God in prayer. I don’t know about you, but I want to see, hear, and discover all the things that God wants me to experience. I don’t want to miss a thing. Mark 11:24 states: Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. God wants to bless us, to show us the things we cannot see in the flesh, take us to places we could never get to on our own. We hear of miraculous things happening around the world, things we may not yet have seen in our own lives, healings, victorious breakthroughs, God moving on thousands of people at one time. We hear stories that follow the bible stories. They happen, they are happening all over the world.
We may ask ourselves why we aren’t seeing the miraculous being performed in our own lives, why we aren’t getting the things we WANT in our lives, we may be getting discouraged. But what if we are getting blessed, but in other ways than we are expecting. What if our blessings are disguised as trials. Maybe, just maybe, God needs to take some things away from us in order to open our eyes and to show us that HE is what we NEED. That HE is our blessing. Our way out. Our “Yes”. Our answer. Don’t think that God taking things out of our lives is his way of punishing us. It might be him trying to make us see that what we have is enough, HE is enough. Maybe the reason there are amazing, miraculous things happening in the lives of those in other countries, countries where people have what they NEED and nothing more, is because what they NEED is God and that is all they have. There is nothing wrong with having things. We live in a society where things are necessary to a point. But those people in other places, they don’t have things that they might be able to lean to provide for them. A job, schooling, social media. They have God. They lean on Him, pray to Him, reach for the things of Him in order to guide them and lead them, teach them, take them where they are needed. They have less distractions keeping them away from God’s word, from their time of prayer. God is their life and they have nothing but Him.
However, a blessing becomes a problem when we allow it to be a distraction. God doesn’t want the blessings in our lives to become distractions. He loves to bless us, but loves our company, our conversations more. He wants the most important thing in our lives to be Him. Prioritizing the blessings in our lives is key. In 2019, I want to make God first in my life. I want prayer to be a priority. I want to see and feel growth happening. And I pray the same for all of you, whoever may be reading this. I pray God moves in your life. I pray He takes away the things that have become distractions for you so that you may truly NEED him. I pray he takes you places you have never dreamed of. I pray. I pray that you will pray. Get down on your knees in a private place (Matthew 6:6 – But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly) and begin to need him so you can see him. I can’t wait for what God has for you in this new year. It all starts in prayer. So pray, just pray.
He gives us Roots so we can Fly. Roots and Wings.
