Reaching Forward Into 2021

Happy New Year!! Y’all I cannot believe we are already stepping into a new year, and that 2020 is in the books. I am definitely someone who sits down to think about goals and resolutions for the new year. However, in years past I have made it so much about ME, which led to my WHY in even creating goals to get quite fuzzy. It became more about me becoming perfect than me becoming a daughter of God. Now it is okay to set out on improving oneself and setting goals, but it is so important that our “why” is aligned with what God desires for us.

The year 2020 for me was one that really reset the way I live my life. God has so graciously torn down a lot of what I was idolizing and letting consume me and replaced it with knowledge of what will actually leave me satisfied. 2020 if nothing else taught me that my purpose in life is to know God more every day, to know who I am in God, and to live out a life that glorifies the Kingdom of God. What God taught you in 2020 may have been different, you probably had some different experiences and hardships, but regardless of what you went through, I guarantee God changed some aspect of how you think and blessed you in multiple ways. Therefore, I challenge you to join me in sitting down and reflecting on all that God placed on your heart and what He taught you.

I would encourage you after you reflect on the past year, to sit and pray and think about what goals you might set to continue the work God did in 2020. What areas of your life can now be worked on, what goals do you want to set in order to further progress in your relationship with God? What areas of your life need to be set free from lies and burdens you carry from year to year. Philippians 3:13 says, “Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead”. What do you need to leave behind (past hurt, past attitudes, old desires, bad habits) in order to move into who God ORIGINALLY created you to be?

Y’all, we are human and we are never going to be perfect. Our lives will be full of progress in understanding who God is and getting back to who we are in Him without the weight of the world on us. But even Paul, who was spreading the gospel and speaking to so many people, admits in Philippians that he too is not perfect; that he too is still progressing in his goal of knowing God.

“Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus” (Phi 3:12)

However, this lack of perfection doesn’t stop him from continuing to reach forward in the goal. He says that he makes EVERY effort he can to reach the goal, which is being driven by the fact that he has already been taken hold of by God. What a beautiful example for us on how we are to step into this next year. Every day we wake up, we can make a mindful effort to pursue God and pursue the goals He has put on our hearts. The days where we fall short, that is where God’s grace pours over us, but then we continue to make every effort after to walk forward. We can take the truth that God made aware to us in 2020, the desires He placed on our hearts, the lessons he taught us, and we can build on them.

Here’s to moving forward into 2021!

Love, Lindsay

Feel free to comment below on something God did or taught you in 2020!