I realize that we often hear, at the end of the year, that it’s been a/an (choose your adjective) year. When it is 2020 that we are talking about, that ‘WHAT’ is far more than we realized when we began 1/1/2020. It is difficult, not impossible, to find the ‘good’ in the year. But the main question is – what have we learned? About ourselves… About our Lord…. About our relationship with the Lord… About our other relationships… ABOUT (fill in the blank). But perhaps we have our eyes in the wrong place. Perhaps the question is – what will we do with 2021? 2021 starts at midnight tonight, well technically 12:01am, 1/1/2021.
Is survival your main focus? Have you looked beyond or been caught up in this world-wide pandemic? It’s sometimes difficult to look beyond staying safe when there is such wide spread doom and gloom to accompany what information we are receiving. Where’s faith? Where’s confidence? Where’s hope? Are you allowing your circumstances to dictate who you are… what you do… how you do you? And yes, it is understandable that you could be attack by all this… but… where’s your focus? Who/What will you believe? How will you choose to activate your faith?
Quite honestly, we can’t do anything more about 2020 but we can choose to ‘take the responsibility’ for our 2021. No, not rose-colored glasses or reciting positive words… what is cannot be ignored. But we also are not without possibilities. Sometimes it really is applying the ‘positives’ and not just saying them, that is the turning point. Have you put into operationalize actions what you want for yourself in 2021? Have you taken what you know, what experiences you’ve gone through and made them a foundation on which to build 2021?
You really need to start with you. If you don’t accept where you are, if you don’t know your equipping and what’s available to you… then you go into 2021 ill prepared. Start where you are. Do those things that you can do. Be you in the midst of all this and choose to grow, choose to believe, choose to have an anchor based hope. Remember… hope IS strong, IS able, WILL sustain you through difficult times. Remember that one of the fruits of the Spirit is Long Suffering… so you can rely on and rest in this.
Truly, you are so much more than you think you are or that others try to tell you you are. YOU are who God says you are, how He’s made you, the assignments He gives you. Believe. Trust in His Word. Hide His Word in your heart and mind.
“My dear children, you come from God and belong to God. You have already won a big victory over those false teachers, for the Spirit in you is far stronger than anything in the world. These people belong to the Christ-denying world. They talk the world’s language and the world eats it up. But we come from God and belong to God. Anyone who knows God understands us and listens. The person who has nothing to do with God will, of course, not listen to us. This is another test for telling the Spirit of Truth from the spirit of deception.” (1 John 4:4-6, MSG)
2021 is in your hands in the essential and eternal issues of life.
