New Year's Resolutions or New Year's Realizations?

New Year's Day always seem to launch people into a desire for change! We come up with our list of things we think we need to stop doing, start doing or change how we are doing. We call that list our New Year's resolutions. How long does that list usually last? A week, a month; maybe a few months if we're lucky. Why? Because being "successful" in our resolutions is based entirely on our ability and our performance.

As 2015 begins, I'd like to suggest a different perspective. Instead of focusing on what YOU should DO this year, focus on what GOD has DONE, what HE is DOING and WHO you ARE in Him! For the child of God, realization of reality is much more effective in producing real change than our attempts at performing differently in order to change. God is really not waiting for us to start acting differently; He is waiting for us to realize who we are and Whose we are! 

He is waiting for us to live out who we really are instead of staying stuck in who we think we are. We are children of the King, co-heirs with Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit. We are destined for greatness...a greatness that reflects the Great One and His Kingdom! When we really believe that, change becomes a natural result! When what we do becomes about the Kingdom of God, when our obedience flows from a heart of love for Him & others and when the thoughts allowed to take up residence in our mind agree with what God declares...then our lives will actually look like the person God has created us to be!! 

So in 2015...be who you really are in Him, walk out love-based obedience and watch God work! 

Grace for the moment

     I recently took a Facebook quiz entitled "What Should Be the Title of Your Autobiography?" While I realize that those quizzes are extremely corny and have no real link to reality, I found this particular result ironic. According to the quiz my autobiography should be called "How I Learned to Dance in the Rain". That is very fitting to what I'll be writing about in this post!

    Have you ever watched a brother or sister in Christ go through something in their life and thought "I don't know how they are doing it, I couldn't handle that!"? Or, have you ever thought about how you would handle dealing with one of your biggest fears coming to fruition and thought it would destroy you? Looking in from the outside or looking forward into the future, there are things that just seem completely unbearable. 

    This past month, one of those "unbearable things" presented itself in my life. But it has turned out far differently than I expected! One of the things that I would have said had the potential to destroy my faith the most has actually done the opposite! I've learned the reality of the phrase "grace for the moment" in a way I never have before. At the very moment when I thought "I don't know if I can do this", God's grace and peace washed over me and I literally felt like I was being carried. In Isaiah 26:3 it says "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You" and again in Philippians 4:7 we are told that when we trust God "the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." I've known those verses all my life but struggled with them because keeping my mind focused on God and trusting Him have never been easy. But in those moments when my circumstances threatened to overwhelm me, the awareness of the presence of my loving God was somehow bigger than it all!

   I discovered that it is, in large part, my understanding of the character of God that draws to me to that place of trust. When I really believe that He is my all-loving, all-faithful Father, focusing on Him is really the only thing to do! It reminds me of when some of Jesus' followers decided it was too hard and walked away and Jesus asked the twelve disciples if they were going to leave too. Peter's response pretty much sums up what I'm learning during this season of my life: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that You are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:68-69) 

   Don't get me wrong, it doesn't make everything easy. Emotions still run high at times and fear threatens to consume me sometimes but I just keep going back to the truth...God is who He says He is and nothing changes that. So no matter what may come I can dance in both the sunshine and the rain - "dancing with my Father God in fields of grace" (Big Daddy Weave) 

   So my encouragement to you is this: God gives grace, strength, peace and everything else you need for the moment you are in right now. Right now you don't have strength for tomorrow, but tomorrow you will. Right now you don't have the grace to handle whatever your "unbearable thing" is, but if it comes I can promise you that as a child of God you will have all the grace you need in that moment.