Happy 2017!!

Good morning!  Today is January 1, 2017.  As always, I like starting new, starting fresh, and starting with a blank slate.  I’m excited about what this year holds for me and have been considering my resolutions, if you will, and about how to achieve what I need to complete so that I may be better this year than ever before.

On those lines, I must confess:  I’m really good at starting new things, making plans, and initiating projects and the like.  However, my weak spot is in the completion of such endeavors.  I cannot tell you how many ideas I have that started off strong and ended up...well, that’s just it.  They haven’t ended.  They’ve not been concluded.  Whether they are files that didn’t get organized, pictures that weren’t properly labeled, Bible Studies that weren’t completed, blogs that were only half-written, cards not sent, scrapbooks that--ooh, let’s not even go there!  👀

Therefore, I have chosen my life verses this year to be from The Message, where often the Word of God is translated into plain, blunt, and what-I-need-to-hear language.  Here they are, from 2 Corinthians 8, verses 10-12:

"The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you
started last year and not let those good intentions grow stale.
Your heart's been in the right place all along. You've got what
it takes to finish it up, so go to it. Once the commitment is
clear, you do what you can, not what you can't. The heart
regulates the hands."

Do you love them?  Ahh, I certainly do and am pricked in my heart that’s “in the right place” and I purpose to “regulate the hands” on this ol’ body of mine!  This passage tells me what the best thing for me to do is:  to finish what I started.  Yes, it says “last year” and there is certainly enough to keep me busy with all those great ideas.  I don’t need my good intentions to grow stale.  I do have what it takes and it’s time to implement it.  And I also love the part that tells me to do what I can, not what I can’t.  I know my limitations so this is vital yet it’s often a challenge of sorts.  I cannot do some things because of my lack of willpower.  I sometimes fail to complete projects because of laziness.  Often I put off until tomorrow what needs done today and before I know it, tomorrow has become the next week, month, or...or today, January 1, 2017.

My life verse last year (John 5:7) dealt with the fact that I had no man to help me.  For much of the year, I finally learned--accepted, rather--that help was not coming from an earthly friend.  I had to suck it up and decide just how important the things in my heart were.  I lost four loved ones in 2016 and that helped to emphasize that regardless of how much love there is from others, in the end it’s all on me what I am going to allow Christ to do in me.  Ahh, you were wondering, weren’t you, when His name would show up?  Lest you think this blog is all about me, let’s get down to the heart of the matter and put the truth out there:  it’s not about me.  It’s all about Christ.  

All, Stef?  Really?

Yes.  Really.  Without Him in my life, I am useless.  My attempts will all fall short.  I will remain impotent.  As I told my Uncle Horace last night before he passed, I just knew Christ would be waiting for him, arms opened wide, smiling broadly, and telling him “Well done, my good and faithful servant!”  Horace completed his tasks on earth and now gets to go on to his reward.  My hope is that I too will receive that reception from Jesus, as He looks at me with love in His sweet eyes, and welcomes me to where I truly belong.  But first I have to let Him complete what He started in me.  He has some works in me yet to perform and my intent is to help Him out by doing my part.  

Let’s pray together now that our Great God will bless our resolutions, lining them up to His will in our lives, and that we will finish our races, complete our courses, and please Him with our purposes.  Ready?

Dear Lord God, another year has been granted to us because of Your unfailing mercies.  So many times last year You could have said “Enough!”  You could have come and had many of us bowing our heads in shame and regrets for what we didn’t do that we promised You we would.  Not that we can boast of anything we’ve done, Lord, but...but You know what I mean, Father.  As Your children, we seek to please You.  Knowing we can never pay You back for what Christ did on the cross for us, our earthly vessels still try.  We try to do things to glorify You, which is our reasonable service.  

But God?  We failed in parts.  We didn’t measure up to the love Your Son taught us.  We didn’t seek peaceably to live with all men, didn’t turn the other cheek often enough, and didn’t mend what was broken.  Instead, we sought our own desires, refusing to humble ourselves, and refusing to submit so that You could prevail and prove Yourself mighty.

So this day, this first day of this new year, we come before You, asking again for Your blessings, Your leadership, and for Your love to shine through us.  Will You help us, Lord, to be better?  Will You remind us to seek You out in all of the plans we make?  Will You guide us what to participate in and what we should stay away from?  Mostly Father, will You continue having mercy on us, patience with us, and supplying the grace we so desperately need to survive down here until You come and get us?  We need You!

Lord, as I close, I want to commit 2017 to You.  I want this year to stand out as the one where I chose love, where I chose obedience to You and Your commands, where I chose to humble myself in areas that are unchartered, and the year Lord that I consider Your will above my own.  Help me to lose this flesh that weighs me down and prevents me from being who You designed me to be all those years ago.  I ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord and my Saviour.  Amen!