2015

I can only remember actually following through with one of my past New Year’s resolutions. I think it was doable for me because it came with a pre-set, this-is-what-you-do-everyday-guide. The planner in me loved it. This year, with four days left in the year, I started thinking about the year…wanting to change the way I approach this transition from one year to the next.

This time of the year is full of competing voices. From stores and commercials we hear, constantly, how deserving we are of BEST thing and nothing can compare until we have that thing. We hear from our feelings as we receive what we desire or don’t, encounter family that we only see at this time of year, and losses are felt deeper at this time of the year. From our hearts come the desire to give and at church we hear of the baby who’s birth allows for the celebration of the holiday that ushers in the dawn of grace.

Who will we listen to?

This next year holds my last full year at Westmont. It holds many decisions, changes in living situations, huge exams, and deepening relationships. The big thing that has been on my mind this break as I sit home, post Christmas, contemplating the coming year and its emotions, is—

Who am I living for?

Over the years I have seen God take on the different roles that I have needed for the happenings of my life—from savior to parent to fighter to protector to comforter to provider, etc. He has always been the one who I could rely on, the one who held my future, who knew my every thought and desire. As I begin to feel the anxiety that plagues me in peering into next year, I bring back to my mind the fact that my Shepherd has already passed before me.

He is present with me here, he knows what I am going to face, and he will be there.

In moving into those decisions, exams, changes, and relationships, I want to make my goal for the next year to remember whom I am doing all of those things for. I want to be living for and giving my all for the glory of God. I want to place my life in His hands. He knows what the next year holds. All the joys and sorrows, successes and failings, decisions and changes—he is fully in control of it all.

I pray that as you set goals for the coming year you would remember the saving grace that we have to rely on because of the gift of a baby boy 2,000 years ago. Listen to the guidance in his will and choose to live 2015 for Him.