new year’s resistance

Each New Year I ask God for a word to have for the coming 12 months and it is so interesting that as I look back, the words that I’ve had have been the exact opposite in what has either been ‘manifested’ or even come anywhere close to the word. I’m not sure if this is pure attack, or if the word has produced but in a different format to what I expected, or if it is even deeper still and was just given in seed form
in the at year that will produce over different time periods..

This year (and we’re only 4 days in at the time of writing this!), my ‘word’ has almost tormented me and kept me awake at night and it has been SO crazily difficult to fix my mind and position to align with God. 

As I’m trying to organise my thoughts, I find it interesting to think that as soon as we move into an assertive stance or position to grow or expand, the resistance increases massively! When our intention is set then it seems that everything within us goes into revolt and wants to then start taking away the little ground that we had!

To engage in growth we must be so aware that we have a real enemy that is against us- the devil and all his demons- as well as our own flesh and comfort zone (or even pain zone- whatever is most usual and accepted as our normal). When we go from passive to assertive, we will always find that the path of least resistance is trying to lead us right back to where we are trying to move on from!

Let us not become discouraged or fatigued as we move forward and let us fix our eyes on the goal. If things don’t look like what we expected then that’s fine- as long as we are investing our all into what we believe we need to be doing, everything else is out of our control.

overwhelming gratitude

On New Year’s Eve I was feeling so unwell that I spent the night pretty much in the bathroom.  Although I was ill, the evening turned out to be such an amazing evening!  The bathroom is my most grateful place to be as I am so thankful for everything that I have there.  I love, and am so grateful, that I do not need help to take care of myself, that I have running water- hot and cold- on tap, clean drinkable water, flushing toilets, sewers to do their unseen work of keeping sanitation.  Although I was ill, I knew that I am living in a country with health care- well equipped with nurses and medicine.  That my body has been made so amazing that if it has been poisoned then it has a system to evict what’s doing damage, and that with respect from me, it has the ability to heal itself in its amazing way.  Outside I could hear the fireworks going off of which then made me so grateful to have never known what it is to live in a war-torn country.  That to me the fireworks and bangs were of celebration rather than reminders of terror. 

Once your mind starts to be grateful, it starts to remember all of those things that we can easily get too busy to appreciate or have time to notice.  In the UK we have a ‘Postcode Lottery’ which picks out a “lucky” someone in a certain postcode to win a crazy amount of money.  How crazy is it that we can forget the incredible blessings we have already within our postcode and lives?!  Here we have free education, help for those in unfortunate situations, healthcare, working facilities of water, electric, internet… 

How I brought in the New Year may not come across as anything special, but it was like a private evening between me and God counting and thanking Him for every blessing that I have in my life.  And since then has set a tone for this year as being so wide-eyed with thankfulness.  I feel so overwhelmed with thanks that I need to publically thank God for all I have.

Thank you God!!!