Time of Reflection

Happy New Year to you!

With the new year ahead of us, I felt it was critical for us to self-reflect and review all the life lessons God taught us in 2024. For me personally, there are wwaayyy too many lessons to cover in this blog, so I will just focus on a couple critical lessons that I want to carry forward into 2025. Hopefully these will resonate with you as well.

Valuable lessons from 2024:

1. Eliminate limits

2. Run to God immediately

3. Start your day off with fresh eyes

Eliminate Limits

• We limit ourselves by our own negative self-talk. (we're not strong enough, good enough, smart enough, ...............enough, you get the picture)

  • Do not listen to the lies of Satan, the more you are in God's Word the quicker you will recognize the lies and be able to dismiss them.

  • Pay attention to your thoughts and be proactive in changing them immediately

  • Pay attention to who you spend time with, their negativity can affect you.

  • Have the courage to set healthy boundaries, speak up when needed and change the conversation when necessary. Ask what Jesus would say or do and do that.

  • 2 Corinthians 10:5; Psalm 139:14

    
    

• Let go of your own personal religious and spiritual limits

  • God can do above and beyond all that we can fathom or even comprehend, He is limitless!

  • God has the ability to use anything or anyone to help us become sensitive to Him, to His will for our lives, or even to be sensitive to the spiritual warfare around us.

  • Matthew 19:26; Luke 1:37; Philippians 4:13; Mark 10:27

  • Our religious practices and spiritual walk with God should always be one of complete surrender and submission to His will (despite what others think you should or should not do, always remain faithful to God first and foremost).

    
    

• Do not become biblically complacent

  • We should not be spiritually lazy or try to justify our sin.

  • We should always remain humble and have a repentant heart.

  • We should not neglect to forgive & love others as God forgives & loves us.

  • We should seek spiritual growth continuously (examples: study God's Word, worship & praise Him daily, seeking His forgiveness & guidance).

    
    

Run to God immediately

• Turn every decision over to God, don't wait until you are worn out, exhausted and left with nothing to give before you decide to seek His instruction.

• Too often we try to "handle" (or control) situations in our own strength only to find out in the end we are not physically or spiritually strong enough to deal with it on our own. So, it's imperative to turnover every circumstance to God and ask Him to reveal how we should proceed. This will prevent us from messing it up and God having to fix it later on.

  • We must remember that sometimes God will ask us to wait for that answer and other times He will give us a strong conviction where we will know without a doubt what He is asking us to do. Remember His timing is perfect, even when it does not align with ours.

Start your day off with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective

• We are instructed to not let the sun go down on our anger. Ephesians 4:26

• By forgiving others we are able to see them with fresh eyes and we are no longer holding resentment towards them, and we can love them as God does.

• I have personally found this to be crucial not only in ministry work, but in all areas of our life. It is not easy, but it is necessary. Always let God be your vindicator, He can do a better job than us.

• Grace should always be our first choice, not our last.

• Never forget how gracious God has been with each one of us, that awareness alone will humble us to a point of repentance.

• Matthew 6:9-13

Friends, I hope you are able to take away a few nuggets of wisdom from these lessons, be sure to read the Scriptures listed and see where God leads you. Remember when we review our own personal lessons, we want to look for opportunities to make improvements and through frequent self-reflection we will begin to think more carefully about how we can become more effective through these changes.

Here's is what was laid on my heart the morning of January 1st, it certainly spoke volumes to me, and I hope it encourages you as well.

This new year is filled with:

• new mercies (recognize them & be grateful for them)

• new opportunities to share testimonies of God's goodness & faithfulness (share boldly)

• new blessings (look for them daily)

  
  

Make sure to:

• pay attention to God's promptings

• listen intently for His still voice

• follow Him courageously & confidently

• let go of frustrations quickly

• forgive daily

• love unconditionally

• pray fervently

• praise Him continuously

• always seek His guidance first

• be prudent

• guard your heart

• follow God's instructions closely

  
  

Proverbs 4:13 NIV

"Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life."

I am a visual learner, and these pictures helped me memorize Proverbs 4:13, what helps you memorize Scripture?

Wishing each of you a blessed and prosperous New Year! May your year be filled with enough strength to endure and overcome every obstacle that lies ahead (never forget that you are the child of the Almighty Creator), may it be filled with enough courage and confidence to follow God's plan (no matter how inadequate or ill-equipped you may feel), may it be filled with enough grace and mercy to keep us humble, and may it be filled with much love and laughter!

Written by: Jill Theriault

Crossroads Coaching - @crossroadscoachingongodstime