Tomorrow is the beginning of a new year. If you are the type that likes to cast vision for the year ahead, let me encourage you to plan your year with hope in your heart and with confident expectation of good things to come – and not with the slant of things you need to fix. In other words, there might be things in your life that are less than ideal, but the temptation is to approach it in problem solving mode and consider the things you need to do to change them. How about we lean into the Spirit of God and look at the things we cannot see?
2 Corinthians 4:18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
There are things in both realms – spiritual and natural. The unseen things (for the sake of this discussion it’s the spiritual realities of God) make the natural things come into being.
Hebrews 11:1 in the Cotton Patch translation conveys that faith is betting your life on the unseen realities of God. Notice they are unseen but still a reality. There is far more to what you and I see with our eyes. There’s an entire world in the spirit that we cannot “see” but it exists and it’s all around us.
If there are things that need to be “fixed” how about setting your eyes on the unseen realities of God and lean into His solution for your situation. Open your heart and mind to the possibility that He already has a solution and as you seek Him, He will reveal the answers. He will give you thoughts and ideas of what to do, what to say, and even how to pray about a certain situation.
We won’t have success with a vision of defeat because we are fighting against the current of our own soul. Get a new vision of your victory – from the written word of God, or from the spoken word of God. I think of Caleb when he returned with the other spies to the children of Israel and told them the land is a good land and it’s flowing with milk and honey. Caleb tried to stir up the people to say ‘come on, we can take them and possess the land. We can do this! God is on our side!’ Besides, God had already told them He was giving the land to them. But the masses followed the naysayers. The other spies told them a bad report and the scripture says “we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight”. They defeated themselves before they even got started. (see Numbers chapter 13).
Discouragement sets in when you consider defeat. Consider it for too long and it becomes your identity.
Head into the new year with Caleb’s words “we are well able to overcome it” (Numbers 13:30). The scripture says Caleb had a “different spirit in him” (Numbers 14:24). He marched to a different beat, following the Lord fully. He went on to inherit the promised land, he and his children.
As you prayerfully consider your year ahead, take the time to get a vision of your victory – look at the unseen realities of God. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating here – if you only knew how close you were to your victory, you would run faster. Don’t give up on something you haven’t seen come to pass yet. Don’t walk into the new year with dread. Lean into Jesus and dream with Him. Once you can “see” it on the inside, feed on it. He is for you and not against you.
Happy New Year!