As we begin the flow of this new year it is important to remember that there will be happiness and sadness, joy and grief, love and hate. Feelings come and feelings go.
If you are like me you often feel stuff that doesn’t really match what you know! We know God loves us and yet we feel unloved. We know our choices affect profoundly our lives and yet in the moment we don’t feel we can choose. We have a body of knowledge that in the face of strong feelings don’t even seem to enter the picture. As the yesterdays give way to today and then flow into tomorrow we can rest that what God is trying to GROW in us is what matters most. It isn’t that what we know and feel is not important. But what we allow God to grow in us is what will affect our relationships, the quality of our life and the progress we make toward our purpose and destiny that holds our identity and our greatest fulfillment!
Our God is a good God! But He knows that we don’t grow when all we experience is smooth sailing! It is the storms that teach us He can still them. It is the struggle that makes us strong. When we exercise our trust and faith in Him we begin to gain experience that allows us to trust more and thus He is able to do more in us! I love the way Paul says it!
Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
Everything that comes to us in this new year has the ability to grow us up into God’s Kingdom!
