As the end of the year approaches, I have found myself pondering 2018. When it started, I remember begging God to allow 2018 to be better than 2017. That year left me hurting physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
And in His grace, God answered that petition. 2018 was a much better year. A year of recovery in every area, of growth and refreshment, of deliverance and peace.
But it wasn’t really because of circumstances. It was because this year, God has helped me to trust Him more. Many of the struggles I had in 2017 were because I wasn’t trusting Him. I was looking at difficult situations and difficult people and getting overwhelmed. My eyes were on things below, not things above. That perspective, friends, is so destructive. When I trust God, I am strong. When I know He is for me, when I live in that truth, I can endure anything and anyone.
As I think about the differences between 2017 and 2018, I realize it isn’t because this year was problem-free. I’ve had quite a few challenges thrown my way. But, rather than feeling buried under the weight of those challenges, I have, through Christ, been able to rise above them. I have taken steps of faith that, in 2017, I was too scared and “downward-focused” to make. And God has blessed me for that. He is so good, to reward us for doing what’s right! He could just shake His finger and demand we obey. But ours is a good, good Father who gives us so much more than we deserve and lavishes us with such undeserved grace.
There’s so much that God knew this time last year that I didn’t. That sounds so ridiculous. Of course, the Creator of the universe knows what’s coming! But I had gotten so wrapped up in fear and frustration that I failed to lean into that Truth. As I look back, I see that, even as I was worrying and stressing, God was already preparing a way out of the difficult situations I was in. He was working behind the scenes to bring deliverance. I should have been trusting him for that instead of fretting over it. I should have been praising Him in the storm. But I wasn’t.
As I look forward to 2019, I want to face it with my eyes on Christ. I want to be used this year to bring Him glory, to point others to Him. I want to resist the temptation to doubt, to become self-focused, to complain and stress. I want to lay aside all those sins so I can continue to run the race He has set before me. I want to lean into the reality that God already knows what’s going to happen next year, and every year after that. I don’t need to worry about the future. I need to live in the present, serving God in each moment He gives me, obeying Him with joy and abandon.
As the beautiful old hymn says, “Trust and obey/for there’s no other way/to be happy in Jesus/than to trust and obey.”
