The last time I blogged was New Year’s Day. Like most people, I was excited about the potential and opportunities of an upcoming year. Do you know that feeling you get when you crack open a new journal? A new year usually feels like that to me. Endless possibilities.
For more than 20 years, I have had a ritual of digging deep around October and really seeking God about what I needed to learn to have a clear strategy to live by in the new year. That strategy always came as a word that I would break down into monthly word studies, guiding my learning and editorial calendar.
From about July of last year up until last week, crickets. I didn’t understand why I, one of God’s favorites, couldn’t hear him. Usually, I see God in everything. I am the most annoying person in the world when it comes to seeing the good that God created. I can go on and on about the beauty of a rain cloud, the brilliance of lightning, or how God’s glory is intentional in all creation. But I felt like I was losing my connection to him… to nature… to me.
Being the type of person who thrives off the creativity derived from my relationship with God, having a silent season threw me for a loop. Actually, it left me feeling a bit hopeless. Unfortunately, the feelings of hopelessness started long before I noticed.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when it started, but looking back, I can admit that the lack of hope catapulted me into a season of busyness. I had to earn more, be better, and dig deeper. I started doing things on my own, without consulting with God. He was quiet. I had to do something. And most of what I did turned out to be a whole bunch of nothing.
My mistake? I became too comfortable, thinking that God always works the same way. Isaiah 43:18-19 says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” I am in a new season of life- recently divorced with adult children, working a 9 – 5 while taking projects on the side. If life looks different, wouldn’t God manifest in other ways?
Guess what? God had not stopped speaking to me. He had just changed how he spoke and the ways he sought my attention. He constantly talked to me, but I wasn’t paying close attention.
For a few years, God has been redirecting me to Isaiah 54, specifically verses 2 – 3: “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.” If that isn’t hope, then what is?
What’s your word of the year?
