So here we are about to close the curtains on 2019! I wonder, was it a good year writing happy stories and making warm memories or did it write sadness, anger and bitterness over things that went down that shouldn’t have? Oh yeah, so much ‘life’ gets thrown into our faces and when we least expect it! You know what I’m talking about because life happens to all of us? We’ve all been there, where it throws it’s curveballs into the game, or sideswipes us off balance, leaving us reeling about with hurt from losses, failures, and insecurities rather than successes, wins, home runs, and victory lines! Life has no guarantees for anything, So, here we sit, with a new year of 365 days soon to unfold and we haven’t even wrapped our heads around the old yet. Will we carry the baggage of failure and broken past the final sunset of 2019 and on over the horizon of 2020, only to drag it around just because we can’t let it go? Beautiful Soul, our failures do not define us. They are not who we are! Drop them! Put them down! Genesis 1:27, reminds us we are created in the image of God. “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God He created them.” God has stamped His approval all over us even with our imperfections that show up all over the place and at the most inconvenient times. Yeah, we’ve all made mistakes, but that’s not who we are! We’ve had our losses and our wins but it’s not who we are! We’ve got our shortcomings but we also have our strengths, you and I and we and us, and they make our story but they don’t write the final chapter. Our Choices write our final chapter and the good stuff is that we can choose to pick ourselves up and move on with a new slate, a new pen, a new notebook and a brighter outlook with a positive attitude.
So beautiful people, let’s give it up and let’s give it over to the Sovereign God in charge! The all-powerful, omnipotent and omnipresent, Ancient Of Days, who sees all, knows all and orchestrates all. He holds our past year in His safekeeping, just as He holds us close to His heart! Our dismal failure or our height of success, is all the same to Him! His grace is lavished on all regardless of what’s gone down! Yeah, if we have breath, it’s our perfect opportunity to take it and run with it. So let’s run right into the arms of Jesus and let our Saviour save us from the sorrows and strife of this life.
James, a servant of God and the writer of this awesome book in the Bible, knew the joy of living for His Lord. He reminds us of it in James 1:2, when he pens the words, “Dear brothers and sisters when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.” and in 1:12 he reminds us of how blessed we are under trial, “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him.”
Our struggles help us write strong chapters in our lives, so let’s choose to endure, persevere in the race and write well as we live and make our way into a new year!
#SoulFire #NewYear
Hebrews 12:1, 2
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with endurance the race set out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.…”
See the inn? See how busy it is? See the baggage left in heaps by so many travelers, so weary, so worn, so anxious to get lodging for their weary bodies and aching feet? Mary needed it too and imagine Joseph, caring so deeply for her but being told, “Sorry, there’s not a room left here. All I can do is show you a stable.” A pieced together shack lined with straw for the animals? Yeah, but it was shelter for the night and a place to lay a couple of weary heads, and hearts and minds, so it was all good.
Mary and Joseph put it down and rested there on that floor of mud and the Savior of the world, their Savior, began there! It’s there they met Him face to face. It’s there where God became flesh in that obscure, desolate place and you got to know, He’s still there today ~ in all the places of broken, hurt, pain, insecurity, nothingness, emptiness, loneliness, ridicule and rejection. Yeah, In all the places of obscure and desolate. If that’s where you find yourself on this day in real-life and real-time, He’s there with you. You can know, He’s been there, done that, and knows your hurt. He came to light the darkness, mend the broken, heal the pain, forgive the sin, save the sinner and bless the soul. He desires to give you all that you need, right here on the mud floor, at the inn of rejection and perhaps bitterness this day. Take the stable with Him and let Him show you the way out to victory in this celebration of Advent! Aren’t we thankful for a Savior who left the glories of heaven to be born in such a lowly place in order to reach out into all the lowly places around a world in need?
Hope and Healing In Hard Places 