Saturday, January 1, 2011

2011: A NEW Year!

I've always been comforted in scripture by the never-ending mercies of the LORD. Every day, every hour, moment by moment we have the chance to start fresh RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. The beginning of a new year is that same feeling multiplied. What is it about simply turning to a brand new page in a brand new calendar that makes me feel like I have a chance to really change? Like somehow today is different than yesterday was.

Hope - Hope in Christ and his promise to finish what he has started in me. Paul talks of forgetting what is behind and reaching forward - pressing on! - to what is ahead. Remembering that the Lord's mercies are new every morning - Great is his faithfulness.

Not too coincidentally, the chapter that I am currently reading in Born Crucified is on discipline. We are soldiers for the Lord and must bring our bodies into submission in order to successfully face the trials that WILL come our way. This was a good thought: Salvation does not mean that we will be placed in a soft and comfortable baby carriage and be wheeled into heaven. We need to work, to harden our flesh both physically and spiritually, deny its wants and pleasures no matter how innocent they may be if they interfere with our service and usefulness for the Lord.

This is all culminating for me into the resolve to finally get fit this year (off to a good start with almost 20 lbs. lost so far), resolve to train my children, by the Lord's grace, to be more disciplined in their own lives, to love more, to pray more, and to take the time to laugh more; to seek out ways to put more "hands" and "feet" into my walk with Christ, and gain a little more control over my tongue - both to not speak those things that are not edifying and to DO speak the things that are needful.

I sometimes feel very limited in my sphere of home, chores, cooking, and schooling, but I know that this is a season which is coming to an end sooner than I realize. May I serve wholeheartedly now, while I am able, and be tested and tried so that I am able to be of even greater use when the time comes - - -

I welcome your prayers -