I wrote a post about living life according to God’s will for my life a while back. In that post, I talked about giving up all the hopes and dreams that I had. In fact, you could say that for the entire year of 2018, God was calling me to give up all the expectations, dreams and hopes I had. I see now that He was wanting me to see that even though I thought they were things that would further His Kingdom, I still needed to let them go.
In their place, He has given me new desires and new dreams. Things I didn’t expect and things I had avoided in the past.
There is one person in particular that God has been using to carve out this new change and new life within me. That person is my best friend of many years. If I shared all that God had been doing through this person in my life, I might be here until the next New Year.
Through this person’s life, I have seen God work in ways that are just crazy. Both good and bad, yet totally have the hand of God written all over it. My friend has challenged me more than I think he realizes. During many conversations about life and random things, God has just spoken ever so softly to me through the faithfulness of my friend. I do not deserve the friendship that we have, but I thank God every day for it. In the Bible, there are many examples of believers challenging each other and standing alongside each other. To have someone so close in your life that will not just challenge you and encourage you, but also be there when needed is a precious gift.
Here it is January 1, 2019. A few weeks ago, life seemed so bleak and so confusing, but God gave me the desires of my heart and has begun to show me what He wants from me. In the last few days, I have experienced the knowledge that only comes from the Lord when it comes to the life that He wants us to live. More than anything, I want to be a servant of the Lord, first and foremost. I know see that He is showing me how He wants me to go about that life. He first had to cleanse me from the past and renew my steadfast spirit. It’s time to start putting into action all that God has taught me and shown me. It’s time to start living in a new way.
In this new season, He will work through me just as He did in the quiet places of the time He spent restoring my hopeful spirit.
If you have in your life a friend or a group of friends who have stood beside you or have challenged you, praise God for them! My best friend is a blessing to me in more ways than one. His life has encouraged me in the things that God has called me to that I once thought impossible. All Glory goes to God alone. He doesn’t have to use me, He chooses to use me. What makes all of this so special is that I know now that whatever it is He holds for me, I will know that I must do them with excellence for His Kingdom. My friend has this thing that he says that I really didn’t understand before until now. He reminds me that to do the work of God, you have to have a winning mindset and understanding. I never got that before because God wasn’t ready for me to understand that until I understood how the past can weaken that mindset. My friend is so right! We have the win on our side because of Christ’s defeat over death.
I will win in this life no matter what happens. My new dreams are from a source of grace and love. These new dreams are so overwhelming in different ways, but I know that this is what God wants from me.
Give the Lord all that you have and all that you desire. Go boldly before the throne of grace. As my best friend says, have a winning mindset because if you are a child of God, you have already won.
