2024, here we come, ready or not…

Do you feel ready? Do you feel energized or beat to a pulp? Do you feel grateful or grouchy?

Here’s the good news! We can start over on other days, too. Not just on January 1st. So if you’re not feelin it, and if you are holding on for dear life at this point, it’s ok. His mercies are new EVERY morning. There’s nothing magical about January first.

Yes, it’s a natural fresh start. So is the spring time when things are in bloom and filled with life.
So is August, when the kids go back to school. What’s my point? to encourage you to procrastinate til March or April or August to get going on your next step? Noooooo, of course not.

Here’s my point: Life is a long game. So do what you can in this season but also trust God to lead you each and every day. This year is so different for me. Can I be completely honest? I’m not feelin it. I’m just not. I’ve had the flu and you would think I’m a man or something…lol – it’s been the man-flu. I’ve been down for a couple weeks now and so no, I am not in the “New Year’s – all things glittering mode”. Also, though, I’ve learned through the years to keep putting one step in front of the other even in what’s supposed to be exciting, fun times that are not…no matter how it feels.

Maybe you have been up against far tougher things than the flu and maybe you aren’t feelin it either and so this New Year’s blog is for you. It’s probably my first one in a decade of blogging that isn’t your expected Rah! Rah! New Year’s blog chalked full of inspiration and goal setting challenges and enthusiasm.

Don’t mistake this for a Debbie Downer blog though. I want you to know there is hope for every day in this upcoming year, even like on February 12th or June 16th or October 10th. I encourage you to take a different approach this year. Not the one of all the hype right now at the beginning that wears off by January 15th but instead, plot out goals thinking of the whole year and not just right now.

Ask God what He wants for you this entire year and not just what you want now. But, please, for maybe the first time, stop, take a look and listen like MC Hammer said and seriously wait on God. Don’t keep pushing through, elbowing your way to the front. I have come to the end of me – finally. And I think God has me right where He wants me, relying on Him and His strength and not my own.

Won’t you join me in giving our cares truly to Him this year, trusting in Him and in His ways, not our own. His ways are higher. I genuinely believe in doing so, He will lift us higher than we can even imagine. Let’s rest more in His grace, look to Him and not them for our help and for our sustenance.

Let’s take a moment on this first day of 2024 and ask Him, “What is Your will, Your direction, Your correction for me in this moment?” Be still and know that He is God, not you.

Only He can fix that broken relationship. You and I have tried with all our guts and it’s still jacked up.

Only He can fix your bank account. You and I have worked our butts off and done the round the clocks and learned and stewarded all we can steward and still What?! That’s the number on the balance sheet?

Only He can grow your business or ministry or venture. Yes we can do our part and that part is fruitless without Him breathing on it. God breathe on what you lead us to do this year! We commit to do only that.

Let’s go in to this year with a consecrated heart, one that is broken before Him. And let’s experience His hand on our lives putting things back together and filling in the gaps with His healing balm. Let’s release this year to Him and relinquish all of our schemes to His hands as we seek His face.

Happy New Year!

Happy Monday!

Adrienne