A Better Place
Happy new year, friends! I’m not one for really making resolutions – I have great intentions, but like many others, my resolutions turn into another checklist that I never complete. 2013 was a very up and down year for me, and I look back with so many questions about why things happened as they did, why life couldn’t have been easier, and even why God allows things to happen in people’s lives. As we start the new year, I’m looking ahead to a better place.
No, I’m not moving, and I’m not running away from home.
Rather, I’m taking what I’ve learned in 2013, and I’m storing it in my heart as I move into the new year. When I say that I’m looking ahead to a better place, what I actually mean is that I am looking to deepen my relationship with the Lord.
I’m fixing my eyes on Jesus and considering the fact that we weren’t made, ultimately, for this world.
Some of what I learned last year was that too much of my trust was in people, when it should have been in God. This year, I am working on trusting, but in the proper order. If I can’t trust God, completely, then any other trust I have will ultimately let me down. Others can be instruments of God’s love, but they cannot be God’s love. I spent too much of last year trusting in the instruments of God’s love, rather than trusting God for His love.
So as I look ahead to a better place in this new year, my focus is to rely on God, first and foremost.
How will I do that? Well, I have a pretty child-like faith; I tend to take God at His word. I have never been one to dig too much into the root words that are used, or the meaning from the original languages.
So when the Bible tells me to –
Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
Proverbs 3:5,6 NKJV
then I plan to try to do just that.
When I am worried, confused, tired, frustrated, even when I’m happy – I will trust God. I will trust that He can take the down times of last year, and teach me how to trust Him more as I move ahead.
I will trust that He can take what will happen this year, and continue to help me focus on Him. I will trust that He can use my family and me to be a blessing to others as we move through this year.
I believe He is preparing a better place for me – personally and spiritually. I believe the same for you as well. God can take whatever has happened to us, or around us, over the last year, and use it for His glory.
As we look ahead to the new year, I am eager to hear of how God is at work in your life. I’m eager to know how He is moving you to a better place, and I look forward to sharing with you about the continued growth in my own life over this next year.
…forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward goal the for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13,14 ESV
Happy new year, friends, and blessings as we travel through this year to a better place!
Rebekah @ Journeying Outside My Box