Truly, the light of the Son has shone on each day more wonderfully than the last! These words, penned New Year’s Day 2011 echo back to me from distant memory and remind me of the immediate flood of blessings I have had each day of this year!
Twenty-Eleven began with a running start. In the Fall of 2010 I made a commitment before the Lord, which I am still working through, and hope to do so for the rest of my life. As New Year’s 2011 commenced, my faith, my life, and my hopes were placed in God’s able hands. My commitment was to someone special, my aim to be a blessing to her and her family, my promise before God to remain steadfast to them, my request before God that he bless me so I could be a blessing, and my plea before God to change me – that I would be a better servant to him day by day.
The Lord has answered so many prayers. I am amazed that He hears and not only hears but answers! One of my constant prayers this past year has been that I would be able to see opportunities arising where I could be a blessing, that I would have the courage and confidence to seize those opportunities, and that I would be granted God’s own creativity to create opportunities to be a blessing. God has overflowed me with amazing opportunities and, more surprising still, He has used these opportunities to other ends than I had intended so that I ended up being more incredibly blessed than I would have thought. I am blown away by the way He works. I love His ways!
I have also been learning not simply to hope for good things but to trust God who has planned for our good, if we would only have faith and trust Him and follow Him so that he can carry out in our life something more wonderful than we could ever have dreamed up on our own!
Praise Him, all creatures here below! Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host! The Lord God, “majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders,” this God, His hand has been on my days, His plans for me from everlasting have been revealed day by day and I am laid low that I have gripped so tightly to fantasies when God’s workings are so much better, so surprisingly delightful, so unexpected and joy abounding!
Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow!
I don’t know about becoming a Cannonball this past year but the Lord has lifted my head, lead me, and carried me forward. I have continued to read His Word on my phone, now using AcroBible NIV. I have abandoned cable television and, with it, The Light, a cable radio station which broadcasts quality Christian music. I have moved to iTunes, mostly, and have found I can get most of the music I want to find. As I talked about in my New Year’s Eve 2010 post, I have stayed with my “christian” playlist and I find there is truth and wisdom and peace in immersing one’s self completely in things good, and pure, and noble.
This year I have been trying to keep a habit of reading a few key, biblical promises, that I first heard from James MacDonald’s series Always True. Listen to the audio series yourself and I think you’ll experience the same uplifting joy I felt coming to understand God’s intention for our blessing! I would read one promise per day, Monday through Friday, in the hope that I’d never forget God’s love and care for me. This year has taught me fully that God is always watching over us, waiting for us to come back to Him, that He could bless all the more being within His Will.
One of my most feared understandings of God is His sovereign Will to humble anyone He so chooses. I have often prayed that He would humble me before I needed to be humbled. One weekend, in particular, turned into such a humbling for me, but the night lasted only so long and joy came with the morning. I understand better, now, what is being said in the beautiful song, Blessed Be Your Name. God is good!
Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
God is so good!
Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your nameBlessed Be Your name
When I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your nameBlessed be Your name
When the sun’s shining down on me
When the world’s ‘all as it should be’
Blessed be Your nameBlessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be Your nameYou give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name
Selah.