How many of you are being bombarded with the pressure of coming up with your "Word of the year?" Of the million weight loss ads promoting how they can "fix" all of your weight issues? Of the talk around the table about growing your business, creating your dreams or coming up with a plan to achieve financial wealth in 2022?
I am not saying that these are bad things but come on, I feel sick with how the ads on television and face book are trying to sell me something because "I must be broken and the only way to fix it is with another new year resolution" and they are my only means of hope.
What are we striving for? To be leaner, meaner, stronger, faster, richer, smarter? All these ads keep telling me that I must be broken and they have the solution for only a limited time offer.
The only thing we need to change, move, fix, find a word for this year is what is going on between our ears. What we think about and where our focus is.
In my devotional reading this morning, Paul Tripp smacks me this statement: If eternity is the plan, then it makes no sense to shrink your living down to the needs and wants of this little moment.
In a moment, your thoughts can seem more important than they actually are.
In a moment, your emotions can seem more reliable than they really are.
In a moment, your needs can seem more essential than they truly are.
We are meant to live lives that are connected to beginnings and to endings. And we are meant to live this way because all that we do is meant to have connection to God of beginnings and endings, by whom and for whom we were created.
I made the Goal Setters Plan this year. I found my Word. I Created a plan and added it to my calendar with how my time will be allocated between family, work, exercise and meal prep so that I can live the best version of myself as possible. I also made those plans and hold on to the words and work over my calendar knowing that I am made for more than all of this striving and searching and planning. That in this moment my thoughts and emotions are focused on what is truly essential to living out the purposes God has called me for. To love Him and love others and be a vessel He works through to help other women and men who are on rocky ground trying to find their footing.
I know by whom and for whom I was created for. And the messages from all of the media posts shrink into the background. The pressure to become something other is no longer needed. I do not need to fix anything, grow anything or change anything that is not in alignment with eternity purposes.
I'll keep doing the fun Word searches and planning because I like to have an organized and fun filled life. I do these things with out pressure to achieve anything other than living out the life God has intended for me to live. I trust His good plans for me.
Matthew 6:19-20 "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust Destry and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven"
Paul Tripp suggest that we think about this: if God has already granted you a place in eternity, then he has also granted you all the grace you need along the way, or you'd never get there. There is grace for our fickle and easily distracted hearts. There is rescue for our self-absorption and lack of focus. The God of eternity grants you his eternal grace so that you can live with eternity in view.
Any maybe, just maybe with this eternal view in focus we will truly live a transformed life because we put our trust in Him while we are working on becoming healthy in body, mind and soul.
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