Lori at Laurel Wreath's Reflections is hosting a New Year's Meditation meme this week. Hop on over, read it through and if you choose to participate, let me know. I'd love to read what you write for 2009.
As this year winds down to a close, the messages start coming fast and furious about "fresh starts" and "goals" and "resolutions." They always do. I get introspective at this time of year and wonder just what God has in store for me in the coming year. What will He ask of me? What will He want me to do? Will I hear Him? Will I respond "yes?" What goals will I set for myself? What changes do I hope to make?
I'm also thinking about 2008. It was the year when God really pushed me to "go to work" in the fight against human trafficking. It will always remain important to me because of that. I know that it was a "foundation" year and I so look forward to whatever God will be building on it. I get back to that same question in paragraph one - Will I respond 'yes?' and you have no idea how much I am praying I do!!
A couple of things I hope to do this year - read the Bible in chronological order (I had this typed before reading Lori's post. Funny how things like that happen, isn't it?). I'm looking forward to it - it just strikes me that so many things may "fall into place" and since I am such a history nut, I hope it makes a lot of what was happening when and how it ties together more clear to me.
One of my biggest dreams is to learn the original languages of the Bible (some day!) and read it in its original format. That comes from doing a precepts study on 2 Peter a few years back. What an eye opening experience that was. Eye opening in the sense that as beautiful as Scripture is, as much as we can (and hopefully do!) learn from it, there is so much we miss simply because our language does not convey the same feelings and meanings the original writer intended. (Did you know there are 6 different words in the Greek to convey different types of "knowledge/to know?" Neither did I until I did that study.) I don't expect 2009 to be the year I learn Hebrew or the year I learn Greek (or both) but perhaps this can be the year I figure out how to start.
I also dream and hope to open a shelter for women and children rescued from human trafficking. My heart aches day in and day out for those people who are caught in the vile web of slavery. How I pray for God to show me the way. How He wants the work done. A few years ago I asked Him to break my heart with the things that break His heart and while the work has started, my heart still cries out to do more. I can't help but be sick at the thought of those men, women and children who are, as I sit here warm and healthy, being starved, raped, brutalized and literally worked to death. Everything in me screams to jump off my chair, run to where they are and "save" them from the life they're living. Not practical. I'd probably be shot dead inside of 30 seconds of breaking down my first door but it is what I want to do.
I dream of wisdom and discernment as I live day in and day out with my husband and sons. I know I could be a much better wife and mother than I am. More patient, more creative, more interested in the lives of those I live with than I am. I pray that God reveals to me those ways I can honor my husband and my children by being a better Proverbs 31 woman.
This begins my 16th year of employment with the same company and heading into my 3rd year with job #2. I hope this year to take a good, long, hard look at the work I do and see if there is any way I can improve my job performance at both places. After being at job #1 so long, everything feels pretty routine and I hope to shake it up, make it better somehow. Whatever that looks like, I want to do that this year. I hope to remain an employee my employers are proud to have working with them and improve myself in ways I haven't even begun to imagine. Take classes at a local college? Perhaps. Just one of a few thoughts swirling around in my head.
Ultimately, my goal in 2009 is to live my life in a way that honors God. To listen to Him more, follow Him more closely and love Him more. Just more. More of the Father. More of Jesus. More of the Holy Spirit. I pray to immerse myself in them and cut more of "the world" out of my life. Turn off the TV. Tune out the enemy.
What are your dreams and goals for 2009?
5 comments:
Be blessed in the coming year! Your first paragraph sounds like my prayer time this morning! Thanks for writing about your passion against human trafficing and making the rest of us aware to pray about that. God bless you big time, Bonnie!
Bonnie, thanks for visiting my blog this New Year. I love your goals and dreams for 2009.
I love your goal for your jobs. I have been doing the same job for 16 years. With the economy the way it is, my employer is looking for all of us to work differently and "shake things up" in order to survive. I must say that is a difficult task when you have been doing the same thing for so long. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about this. I have added that to my prayer list for this year. That God would show us how to do just that.
Have a Blessed New Year!
I was so blessed reading your post. And thinking of you praying for God to grieve your heart of the things that grieve His... just melts my own.* I need to pray that as well.
You are a deeply compassionate soul, and you have touched me today, to want more of Him.
Blessings my friend, and Happy new year! May you have a healthy year, at Jesus' feet.
Lea
I loved reading this and it sounds like God has big goals for you. I pray he leads you and guides you. Happy New Year!!
That is a great post! Just by reading your words I can tell you have a heart that is beating for Jesus!
May God bless your year and may He touch many other lives through yours!
Blessings!
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