A New Year

5,4,3,2,1! Happy New Year!!

2015 has come and gone. I don’t know about you, but for me this past year went by in a blur. It honestly feels like just yesterday that I rang in the 2015 year, and now all of a sudden it’s 2016. Now that the New Year has arrived how do you hope the New Year will go? Have you written down a list of New Year’s resolutions? Are you planning to make yourself bigger and better than last year? Instead, why not focus on giving this year to God. Wholly and completely. Instead of making that list you think you are going to keep, write down a list of prayers for the upcoming year.

Reaching toward the one who created me.
One of my prayers that I have for this year is to just let God be in control. To learn to trust him in a greater context and allow his plans for me to come alive in my heart. Do you ever wish God would just tell you exactly where he wants you to go? That he would send you a scroll with where he is taking you? I do. As a college student I always get the question, “So what do you plan on doing with your degree?” I tell them, “I don’t know.” When I respond with this; I wish in my heart I did, but I know that God knows where he will have me in the future even though I question where I am going. Proverbs 16:3 states “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” So I pray that this year I learn to be more patient with God and trusting.

However, perhaps your prayer isn’t focused on his plans for your life. Perhaps your prayer for the New Year is to have a fresh start. To begin again. To throw all that happened in the past on the back burner and look at the clouds that are clearing in the distance. Last month I asked God to do this in my heart. I had begun to realize that I hadn’t been putting Christ in the forefront of everyday. For me that is a goal. To better my relationship with him. It is only because of him that I have been given another day to live. I should be thanking him every day and showing him how much I appreciate him dying on the cross for me. He died for ME! It is still a concept that is hard for me to grasp. When this reality hits me at times I just think about how I questioned him in the past, and that while I questioned how he created me he says, “I have set my only son to die for your doubts. He bore that cross because you are beautiful and my one of a kind creation. I knew what I was doing when I created you. Why do you doubt me?” Ask God today to help you start fresh. Ezekiel 36:25-27 states, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”


I pray that this is an exciting year for you, and I wish you a very H
appy New Year.

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