To be perfectly honest, my January 2020 has been rough. It has been filled with tears, sadness, disappointment, and frustration. It has caused me to reevaluate who I am and the people in my life as well as what is my purpose in life. I think sometimes we can become so consumed in this idea that life should go a certain way. We have to graduate on this date, we have to have this career, we have to be with this person and plan a life with them and in reality, this is frankly not reality. We can have all of these plans and all of them can fail. We can lose our job; we can break up with someone who felt like they were our one and only, or we can miss out on opportunities we were sure were for us. God did not design our lives the way WE want them to be. God has a perfect plan for each of us, we just have to die to ourselves so that we can have what God has for us.

I know I know; it does sound crazy but no, you aren’t killing yourself, you’re dying to these notions you created for yourself. You are dying to what you think your life should be like and giving your life over, FULLY to Christ. Galatians 2: 20 states, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Have you ever heard sweeter words? Christ DIED for us. He died so that we could have life and life more abundantly, what a privilege that is.

This is why we must die to ourselves DAILY. We must constantly remind ourselves that our lives are not our own and that Christ took the ultimate sacrifice for us. In this New Year, I have felt that immense call to focus on Christ fully. To me, that meant giving up social media for a month, waking up early for prayer and devotion to Christ, attending prayer service, church service and Bible study each week. To me, this was a recommitment to God. I wanted to show God that I was all in and that my top priority was Him.  I noticed that oftentimes, I am pushed to lean on God more in times of confusion and pain in my life, this is common for most but I wanted God to see that I’m not only leaning on Him during this season of singleness for me but because I need Him every hour. The more I mature in Christ, the more I can see what He has in store. Over the Christmas holiday, I felt God showing me something that I didn’t want to believe because I wanted to see things differently. I have learned now that when God pulls at your heart and sends you a sign, you must listen. We are only hurting ourselves when we don’t listen to Him.

God is an interesting Being. He gives us freedom of choice and then gives us signs when we need to incline our ears to Him more. We can either die to our wants and desires or do what we wants. I have learned that the best option is to die to what we want and listen to Him. This is the only way that we will live lives that honor Him fully.

I was heartbroken the first half of the month of January because I didn’t understand why God would take someone that I thought He sent out of my life and then I started to understand. God does EVERYTHING for a reason. He wants His children to be happy and live lives that bring Him the praise, honor, and glory. Oftentimes we can become so consumed in people, things, and blessings that He sent, that we lose track of the plans that He has for us.

God is a heart fixer and will not allow the pain that we feel to last always, He feels our pain and will mend our broken hearts if we just let Him. But first, we have to die to the desires that we have for our lives and give ourselves fully over to the Lord.