Blog – 1-9-19
Welcome to 2019! Hope you had a wonderful time celebrating our Savior’s birth and the new year.
Wherever you ended 2018, whether you felt like you were on a mountaintop or in a valley, I want to encourage you that God is there with you. He sees you, He loves you, and His plans for you are good.
And the good news is today is a new day! It’s a fresh start, a new year, a season bursting with possibility.
We all love the idea of a fresh start because it holds so much hope and promise.
But the amazing truth for us as believers is, we have a fresh start EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Because of God’s unfailing love, we get to wipe our slate clean each and every time our feet hit the floor. Every day is a brand new day! God’s Word tells us:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23
What an amazing gift and privilege it is to start each day with a clean slate. Unfortunately, most of us don’t claim that truth for ourselves. We are quick to offer that encouragement to others, but so often we cling to our past. We let the mistakes we’ve made and hurts that we’ve endured haunt us and hinder us from reaching for new goals for the year. We feel defeated and think we can’t change old behaviors.
And when we cling to our past, we lose sight of our future. We lose hope. We lose the promise that a fresh start offers.
Many of you reading this might hate the whole process of goal setting and making New Year’s resolutions. I get it. I really do, because the reality is the majority of us don’t even get through the month of January before we’ve given up on them.
Can I help you with this, my friend?
I encourage you, take the time to make goals for yourself. Decide that this is truly a new day and you get to choose how you are going to live it. Choose to not let your past define your present or hinder your future.
Reality is, if we don’t make goals for ourselves, if we don’t decide our priorities for the year, we have actually made the decision to let everyone else in our life decide for us. Working on goals helps us figure out what we want our precious time and energy focused on and where we want to grow.
If you struggle with writing goals, here are the areas I focus on, and in this order:
Spiritual Marriage Family Career Hobbies and Personal
Write 2 or 3 goals in each area, and be sure to make them specific and measurable. Ask yourself where you would like to be in each area of your life a year from now, and write it down. It’s SO important to write our goals down.
I plan on reading my list every morning when I do my quiet time so I can keep them in the front of my mind. I know if I don’t, nothing will ever change. Hoping and wishing for change are not what make change happen. Change is what makes change happen! Changing our habits. Changing our thoughts. Changing our actions.
And when I fail in an area or two or three along the way, I’m going to do my very best to let it go and remind myself that today is a NEW DAY!
I encourage you to step into 2019 with confidence that God is going to use you in mighty ways this year! He is…if you are willing to let Him!
Hugs and love,
Jill