Today is the first day of this new year and I awoke at 4:30AM. My first thought was 'you don't have to get up yet, it's Saturday' but was overruled by the thought "It's time to spend time with my God and then I need to get busy on the things I plan to take for lunch today." So got up I did and closed the bedroom door so that hubby could sleep; he got up around 5:45AM and brought me my coffee.
We stayed home last night and watched a couple movies. One was about a writer who had quit writing and was dying... and her nurse encouraged her and ... well, trust me, it was good. The second movie you may have heard of, and may even have watched it. I would encourage you to watch it on Netflix or Prime Video (or ask to borrow my DVD) as it will touch your heart. It is called 'Overcomer' and is a great movie about a young 15 year old girl who becomes a cross-country runner. Things she went through, things she did, and who she was. Yes, I cried during that movie (as well as the first one we watched).
Hubby and I did sit down yesterday and discuss what we were choosing to give up for our fast, which starts tomorrow. It's interesting how we interpret what we will do. His comments were 'No this. No that. No this. No that.'. I choose to turn it around and say 'I will eat only this or that. I will do this or that.' I feel it is more positive than telling myself I can't have something to a choice of what I will have. Of course he flipped his around to where we will be eating pretty much the same, except he says he has to have ......
Even more than giving up certain foods during this 21 days is the heart change, the things that make us pause and think about what we are doing - and why we are doing it. We need to have a purpose for doing it - not just doing it because it is the first of the year. And we both had a good reason, but our focus is a bit different. Not saying either of us is right or wrong; it's just what is important to us as far as this fast. It doesn't mean what the other is wanting to focus on isn't prayed for, it may not be the primary focus.
And we both have plenty to pray for - individually, together, family, church, work - so many different topics and so many different things. I am choosing to prepare myself for the next 21 days. I can't prepare anyone else; I can't insist they be as focused as I choose to be. We are individuals and we seek God in our own ways. Seeking Him is the entire point of the fast. Not for what He will do for us, or give us, or answer for us.
Even if God never answers another one of my prayers (and He has answered many of them!), I will choose to love Him, to press into Him, to seek Him with all of my being. He is the reason I am alive. He is the reason I live. I choose Jesus.
Who do you choose to follow this year? What changes do you want to see in your life this year? Eat more healthy? Get a bit more exercise? Smoke less, drink less? Focus on your family more? Put your family first? Love the unloveable? Forgive the unforgiveable? Put others before yourself? Bring joy to others and not pain? There are so many things that can be changed in many of us. Even as I wrote the above, thoughts came to my own mind of things I need to work on.
But I still choose Jesus first. I can't do any of these things on my own. One thought I had was when I find it hard to forgive myself for things, how can I forgive others? Only because I know that Jesus has forgiven me and has set me free from the pain. Unforgiveness of someone has kept me in bondage for years... I have chosen in the past to ignore it cause 'I am justified in feeling what I feel'... and yet, Jesus can set me free from that bondage by helping me to forgive. So I'm giving that pain, that anger, that justification, to Jesus this year. I choose to take back what the enemy has taken from me - my freedom. I choose to love; I choose to forgive; I choose to live. It doesn't mean people will not make me angry again, or hurt me again, they are just people. I choose to let Jesus deal with them. I will choose to live life to the fullest.
I pray that your choices for this year will reflect the man or woman that God has created you to be. That the choices you make will build up, and not tear down. That the image you project, will be one that others will remember and honor you. Today is the first day of this year. Make the best of it, as it will set the pace for the year.
Joshua 24:15 (NIV) "But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."
Who - or what - do you and your household serve? Choose Jesus - you will never regret it.
Blessings!
