Happy New Year!
It’s arrived with a clean, new slate and a fresh, new start or has it? Isn’t it so easy to drag the chains that bound the past across the finish line and carry heavy stuff to a new beginning? We do that don’t we? Just because we do, and, ~ just because we can’t turn it off. Our minds work way long into the sleepless nights with stuff that won’t shut down and minds that won’t wear out, and anxieties that won’t let go, and old habits that won’t shake off and so you and I and we and us, we just run this ‘living race’ with so much baggage tied around our ankles.
Sometimes in the deafening silences of those dark hours, with so much noise in our heads, God whispers words into our hearts about how He’s got it all and the worry is so useless and so unnecessary, yet we can’t wrap our heads around a ‘No Worry” or a “No Fear” mentality.
Paul penned from imprisonment in Rome, such a good word of encouragement to his dear friend Timothy, whom he called his son,
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7.
Paul was passing the torch to Timothy as his successor and he knew there would be opposition. He knew It wouldn’t be easy to fan the flame and carry on in his absence. So he encouraged with God’s truth.
Yeah, we can be beaten and weary at the end of an old year, and about to enter a new one overtaken by fear and worry without stamina, motivation or courage. We too must face opposition but we must face it in God’s strength and courage alone. We too, must pick up the torch and carry on through the hard things that will come and as Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, something that he knew to be certain of he writes to us today. He focused, not on the problems or the prison that held him, but he saw his goal in this big rat race of life. It wasn’t about him but about winning the prize of God’s heavenly calling.
Beautiful soul, the beginning of a new year brings us that much closer to the prize. Let’s be challenged to stay the course and fight the good fight of faith, forgetting what’s behind and pressing on past the start line once again. Obedience to our Sovereign God is mandatory and the key to winning this demanding race. It won’t be easy, but it will be victorious and it will be worth it! Amen?
~k
“Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have laid hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize of God’s heavenly calling in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:14
#AfterAdvent#NewYear#Twelvedaysof Christmas
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