“At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.” -Oswald Chambers
Anticipation of a new year
Don’t we all inhale the newness of the approaching year, saying “this year will be different, better–I will be different, better.” We write lists, make charts, set goals–all of which we should. And then the sneaking memory of our failures from the year before creeps in and tells us “don’t bother”.
We strive–and there is place for striving–but mostly we forget “The Lord will go before you.” We strive and fail, so we make more charts, try harder and finally give up…UNLESS, at the end of our striving we realize “His grace is sufficient for me; for when I am weak, then He is strong“.
Do I ever just leave the room, go to a quiet place, fall on my knees and strive there? What would life be like if I made a habit of this striving?
“He is close to the broken and contrite.”
We have help
I am the manager of my home, and as such, there are lists to make, things to improve–practical areas to govern.
But as the year begins, I will purpose to wrap these duties in humble prayer and petition to the Father. “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
And then, like the demonstration of placing larger rocks in the jar first so the smaller ones fit around it, I will prioritize the day, and put the big stuff in first. The stuff of eternal weight, no matter what others say is the most important.
What is motherhood
I am prone to think that motherhood is a lot of crying out to God to bear me up, and a lot of smiling, talking and learning to enjoy my children as I try to show them glimpses of a Savior. Can I do those things? Won’t everything else fit in around that?