My new diary 🙂 At the minute there are still loads of blank pages and empty days to be filled.
What will this new year bring? What does 2015 have in store? A question that has cropped up for many of us over the past few days.
I have plenty of things that could have filled today! Christmas decorations need to come down, washing and ironing baskets are full, the busy Christmas kitchen needs tidied, in fact the house looks like a bomb has hit it and it has in the shape of a waggy tailed Tess!!!
But all that will have to wait because today is a deliberately empty diary day!
For me each new year begins properly on the first Monday of the year and before I can move forward, I need to look back.
Back to 2014. Back to my journals with gratitude for all God has done, thoughts, words, prophecies, scriptures, quotes, prayers prayed and answered. A year of pages filled with His kindness, His faithfulness, His provision, His favour, His abundance, His blessing, His adventures, His guidance, His strength and His peace that even when things seemed out of my control, He was always, always, always in control of every little detail.
A review of last year provides a preview of this year.
As I look back in celebration, I can look forward with confidence.
When the view ahead is focused on His goodness, it clears away any doubts and distractions and disappointments that could could so easily clutter or distort the view.
Only He knows what this year will bring and my one certainty is the need to surrender control of 2015 to Him. But that does not mean I surrender my contentment with life by believing “I will only be happy WHEN … ”
As my diary says “create the life you love“. I can’t and won’t postpone life in 2015 until I know exactly what each diary day will contain.
The cover page reminds me that before I see what any day does or doesn’t hold, I have to be intentional in creating the life I love. I need to intentionally choose to live life NOW!
To choose rest over stress; relationship over isolation; contentment over cynicism; an awareness of His abundance over a mindset of spiritual poverty.
To choose to be satisfied with what I have yet remain hungry for more of what He has for me.
To choose to pursue His presence, His promises, His purposes.
I was reading this morning about the Beatitudes in the BIOY-Bible in One Year (an excellent app by Nicky Gumbel). “The Greek word used in Matt 5:3–11, ‘makarios’, means ‘blessed’, ‘fortunate’, ‘happy’ – the privileged recipient of God’s favour. Or, as the Amplified version puts it, ‘happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous, that is, with life-joy and satisfaction… regardless of their outward conditions.’” #BIOY
I choose to be BLESSED.
I choose LIFE-JOY.
In 2015, I choose to create a life I will love! I choose to be the privileged recipient of God’s favour.
Regardless of outward conditions.
“Wisdom is the ability to make choices that will bear fruit in your life that you will enjoy for years to come.” (Joyce Meyer)
Shirley Rogers 