I have spent many New Year’s Days pondering my life and coming up with things I should do differently, or things I hoped to experience or accomplish, and then writing them down somewhere special so I wouldn’t forget them.
It wasn’t too difficult to find some things that I knew I needed to change, and I usually could come up with some things I hoped to experience or accomplish. The newness of the year added motivation and anticipation to make them happen.
But, I have lived through many New Year’s Days by now and I have found that very few, if any, of those resolutions ever lasted for more than several weeks.
Good intentions without conviction won’t be attained!
I’ve realized that when I ponder my life and think of the experiences and accomplishments I am limited to what I know and what I want.
My thoughts and ways fall so short of what God intends for my life!
On my own I don’t have what it takes to make myself all I was created to be!
My thoughts don’t consider the real changes that need to be made, my ways limit the real purposes I have been destined to live.
These verses remind me that rather than pondering my life and figuring out what is best, rather than writing down my plans and desires, I should look to God and ask Him what He wants for me.
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord.“And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
So for the last several New Year’s I have asked God for a verse for the year.
I found that when God gives me a verse, words that are personally from Him to me, they hold within them truths that don’t leave me trying to change my actions to keep my resolutions, but actually give me a different perspective and change me from the inside out. Its God’s Spirit within me that convicts, motivates, and enables me to live fully the life He has for me.
God knows me better than I know myself. God’s thoughts about me are so much higher than I could ever consider and He knows how to show me who I really am and how to become the woman He created me to be.
The verses God gave me for this year are…
Oh, the joys of those who do not
follow the advice of the wicked,
or stand around with sinners,
or join in with mockers.
But they delight in the law of the Lord,
meditating on it day and night.
They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
and they prosper in all they do. Psalm 1:1-3
Consider asking God for a verse, or several verses, for this year that will convict, motivate, and enable you to live fully the life He created you to live!