Micah 7:7 English Standard Version
7 But as for me, I will look to the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
For as long as I can remember, the days between Christmas and New Year’s were spent assessing, evaluating the previous year and planning all the ways I would promise myself I would do better, would improve in the following year.
I crafted a detailed mindset with goals, timelines, and rewards if I hit the target.
Rarely did I just focus on one resolution.
Instead, I filled every line on my mental calendar with a new achievement.
Then every year around the first of February, exhausted, overwhelmed, and utterly irritated, I threw my resolution in the trash and immediately penned another, this time, a more reasonable, obtainable list–except it was just as expensive, irrational, ridiculous and unrealistic to maintain as the first one.
But with all that has happened to me medically over the last year, I decided to ditch those resolutions for good and focus on a word or Scripture for the year.
Setting goals, working towards improving oneself is definitely not a bad thing.
But, we mustn’t let our identity be rooted in what we achieved ( or didn’t).
This year I decided to focus on three words, Scripture, and prayer and action.
My hope is to spend a few minutes each day to meditate and abide in Christ, using these words to prompt my quiet time – to then motivate me to action.
Feel free to use the below phrases to encourage you this year, and remember, it’s not about what we did in 2023, will do in 2024 but Whose glory we do it for.
Be it Resolved: Steadfast Meditation Upon God
Psalm 51:7-15 The Message
7-15 Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean,
scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life.
Tune me in to foot-tapping songs,
set these once-broken bones to dancing.
Don’t look too close for blemishes,
give me a clean bill of health.
God, make a fresh start in me,
shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.
Don’t throw me out with the trash,
or fail to breathe holiness in me.
Bring me back from gray exile,
put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways
so the lost can find their way home.
Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God,
and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways.
Unbutton my lips, dear God;
I’ll let loose with your praise.
Every day I am bombarded with decisions that beg for my highest attention.
For the sake of my surgically repaired heart and my wife, what will I eat?
Will I be able to do daily the exercising my Cardiologist and Primary Care want?
Do I have the money to get my basement checked, my electric, or my gutters?
Considering all of the events of the past year, all of the appointments I know I will have to make and then keep, my wife’s appointments and all of her needs, will there be any real time for the both of us to schedule our husband wife time?
As I go about creating and then slaying my to-do list, I often forget to address the most critical decision of my day: will I be able to choose to live a godly life?
A part of managing the high demands of my life, my living a truly godly life is my seeking daily redemption and my daily morning renewal of my heart and mind so that I can be able to somehow spend my day, be steadfast in the Lord.
I thank God that God graciously gives His Children a heart that longs for, yearns to spend every waking moment loving Him and a spirit of steadfast obedience.
Before I go about my day, l take time to call on the name of the Lord and ask for a clean heart that flees from evil and a right spirit that glorifies God in all I do.
Lord, I pray that you will renew my heart every day, give me a steadfast spirit that aches to choose to live for you faithfully. Amen.
Be it Resolved: Pleasing God and in return, displeasing Culture
Romans 12:1-2 The Message
Place Your Life Before God
12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Growing up, one of my favorite restaurants had the slogan, “we aim to please.”
Yeah, I know, it’s the service industry; should not they always aim to please?
But pondering that now, I believe I have always somehow missed the point.
The restaurant was not desiring a one-and-done transaction, but providing a series of pleasurable experiences that would lead into a lasting relationship.
How often do I treat my relationship with God like a one and done transaction to be completed before moving on to the next thing?
God finds great pleasure in the continuous relationships with His Children.
I can worship and honor the Lord by simply making a habit of abiding in Him.
Lord, renew me that may I daily live in a way that is holy and pleasing to you. Amen.
Be it Resolved: Fighting against My Powerful Weaknesses and God’s Power
Ephesians 6:10-12 The Message
A Fight to the Finish
10-12 And that about wraps it up. God is strong, and he wants you strong. So take everything the Master has set out for you, well-made weapons of the best materials. And put them to use so you will be able to stand up to everything the Devil throws your way. This is no weekend war that we’ll walk away from and forget about in a couple of hours. This is for keeps, a life-or-death fight to the finish against the Devil and all his angels.
During these last months of realizing I am only as strong as my heart permits me to be, if it is not strong then neither really am I, since my surgery, all my doctors, my exercise people and my wife and my friends and my Pastors have encouraged me to prepare both physically and spiritually for the rest of my life.
I am beginning to tailor my workouts at rehab and at home to focus on the muscles that helped deliver on that very well meaning, thought out advice.
However, mentally, I was anxious. I confessed to my wife, “there is just too much going on all at once and I just simply don’t have the power to do this.”
And by myself, I didn’t have the strength.
But, as a child of God, I had the power of Christ living inside of me.
My strength comes from an all healing, all loving, all-powerful Father, and He graciously gives to those who call on His name acute awareness of His presence.
Lord, as I get stronger, help me be strong in you, to rest in your mighty power. Amen
Intersecting Faith and Life:
Micah 7:7 The Message
7 But me, I’m not giving up.
I’m sticking around to see what God will do.
I’m waiting for God to make things right.
I’m counting on God to listen to me.
Please take a few minutes today and read through your favorite Bible verses.
Is there a Word of God that speaks to you, where you are in this exact moment?
Resolve to meditate and ponder on that place, moment and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal more pieces of Scripture, phrase, prayers as you embark on a new year.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 121 The Message
121 1-2 I look up to the mountains;
does my strength come from mountains?
No, my strength comes from God,
who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.
3-4 He won’t let you stumble,
your Guardian God won’t fall asleep.
Not on your life! Israel’s
Guardian will never doze or sleep.
5-6 God’s your Guardian,
right at your side to protect you—
Shielding you from sunstroke,
sheltering you from moonstroke.
7-8 God guards you from every evil,
he guards your very life.
He guards you when you leave and when you return,
he guards you now, he guards you always.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 