Happy 2024 everyone! I pray that everyone has had a safe and happy holiday season, full of good memories and Jesus! This break has been so refreshing to me, and the Lord has taught me so much that I'm excited to share with y'all today.
I've walked into this new year much differently than I have in years past. I've ditched the resolutions and goal planning and replaced it with prayer, prayer, and more prayer. For weeks before, I was on my knees seeking the Lord for His wisdom and guidance, creating prayer strategies and pages full of His word to me. He aligned my heart with His, and that empowered me to reorganize my priorities to honor Him more than ever before.
Since I've made this transition, I've developed sort of a resistance to the "new year new me" mentality.
I've realized that I don't want to settle for "new year, new me" when I could have Jesus and become a new creation. In Jesus, I find so much more than the new me that the new year offers. I find a new life, a new future, a new eternity, a new freedom, a new love. I have a recreated identity and a foundational truth. I have a deep, real shift in my purpose and lifestyle through the Holy Spirit - not a temporary change of surface level habits.
I see so many people - Christians included - settling for new "me" in the new year, something that can only be mustered up by human strength, when we could become a new creation by the Almighty's strength and experience abundantly more than we could ever create for ourselves.
Which is why I've approached this year so differently. My focus is less on me, what I want to accomplish, how I can change my life, and more on the Lord, what He wants to do through me, and how I can lean on His strength to walk in obedience. Anything and everything that I can create will only fall short compared to what the Lord can create, so why would I settle when I could have Jesus?
Friends, I would challenge you to walk into 2024 differently than years past. Bring the Lord into your planning and allow Him to do the transformation in your life. Invite Him to influence your intentions and priorities. Cover every aspect of your life and the new year with prayer and surrender. I promise you, when you do that, you will experience peace and anticipation that surpasses all understanding because the Lord is with you.
If you're feeling a little lost on how to make this happen, here are a few practical, specific ways to include the Lord in your new year's preparations!
Make a list of each area of your life and pray over it specifically. Then, write down what you feel the Lord has spoken to you.
Ask the Lord for leading, and then pick out a few Bible verses that will encourage you and challenge you throughout 2024.
Create prayer strategies over this year and each area of your life (relationships, school/work, sports, your faith, your passions, your future, etc), and then continue to refer to them throughout the year.
Write a gratitude list or prayer over for the past year, thanking the Lord for all that He's done and brought you through.
Ask that the Lord would reveal to you anything that you need to remove or improve upon, and then ask for His strength to walk forward in obedience.
Have conversations with your people about what the Lord has put on your heart, and hold each other accountable going into the new year!
And to be completely honest, many of us don't need a "new me" in 2024. We need to continue the work that the Lord has begun within us - not start all over! May this be a year of continual prayer and surrender to the Lord, so that He would transform us into whoever He has designed us to be, not what the world says we need to be.
I am genuinely so excited for 2024, and it's all because the Lord has offered me so much insight into what He is calling me to do and where He is calling me to go. I have received His word over my life, and that has covered me in peace unlike any other. I pray that you would be able to walk into the new year in the same way, and experience the same peace that I have!
How did you walk into 2024? What were you intentional about planning and praying over before the calendar turned? What are you focused on going into 2024? Let me know down in the comments below; I love to hear from you!
Also, if you have any posts that you want to read in the coming year, let me know! I want to create content that encourages and equips you, so I'll take all the feedback!
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