New Year; New Goals; Fresh Grace

How is it possible to have so much to say, but be reluctant to say it?

Maybe it’s because everyone and their brother’s dog has an opinion nowadays and feels the need to share it.

Or maybe it’s because I don’t move to write when true inspiration hits and I tell myself “I can write that later…”

Or maybe I simply lack the discipline to remain consistent and use excuses to justify it.

Ouch!

I find it irritatingly ironic how I can know I am gifted with words and be told over and over throughout my life that I should do something with it yet still struggle to just do it. Sigh.

If you’re kinda dense like me, you need these constant reminders that you need God’s grace to do everything. Even the things you’re good at.

The James 1:17 states, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”

Your gifts and talents? They’re from God. You’re ability to comprehend complex problems and come up with solutions? That’s from God.

The point is that we’ll never be good enough or smart enough where we don’t need God. We need to always be conscious of our frailty and fallibility. Not so we can live with low confidence and condemnation but so that we cultivate a deep need for God.

We need God on the mountain tops as well as the valleys. We need God when healthy as much as when we’re sick. We need Him when our hearts are bursting with the love of family and friends or when we feel alone and rejected.

We need His grace. It is the fallacy of man, the height of arrogance and pride to think “OK, God, I got this!”

Acts 17:28a says “For in him we live and move and have our being.”

This is one of my favorite scriptures. It’s a reminder that – in good times or bad – we receive our sustenance for life from Him and Him alone.

People, we need God. We need His presence. We need His grace. He holds our very breaths. We need to rely on Him, not just in our weaknesses, but in our strengths.