I have had a tough year this year, but if I told you it was both hard and amazing at the same time, you would think I was mental. But yes it has been amazing. I learned so much about me and what I want in my life, and I would not have learned this if everything went how I wanted it to go this year. I had to go through the loss, the pain and the heartache to truly trust God in a way I never had to before. Now the New Year is upon us and many of us are excited, making plans, making resolutions, thinking about how we can do things better and different in 2023, and that includes change.

Some New Year’s resolutions might include: losing weight, which requires a change in diet; some resolutions include paying off debts and that requires changing spending habits; but whatever the change, it is an inevitable part of life and a necessary part of growth.

We have all had experiences with change, some glamorous and others not so much, having a baby, buying a home, being debt-free can all be so amazing but then there is another type of change, one that is unexpected. I think about times when God commands change, let me explain, there are times when God will tell you to do something, and as you are busy doing it, He tells you to do something else, that seems to be in conflict to the first instruction He gave you.

I will give you an example from the Bible, in 1 Samuel 9:16 the bible speaks about how the prophet Samuel had anointed Saul as King over Israel. “Tomorrow about this time I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him commander over my people Israel, that he may save my people from the hand of the philistines; for I have looked upon my people, because their cry has come to me.”

But, in 1 Samuel 16:12 David is anointed to be king just a few chapters later. And we see God giving one instruction and then later giving a different instruction which seems contrary to the first one.

I will give you another example: there was a group of people in the New Testament called the Pharisees and the Sadducees. These were a group of people that followed all the laws of God given by Moses, but when Jesus came and His ministry began, they rejected Him and His ministry because what He did and what He was doing felt to be contrary to what God had initially spoken when He gave the laws to Moses, and this is where many of us get stuck, literally at war with change, and at war with what God is doing in the present and holding on to the last word God spoke by any means necessary.

Now change is great until that change requires us to have faith for the next season, change is great until it pushes us out of the comfortable into the unknown, and then it becomes painful. Change is great until God calls you out of that job or those friends and calls you to walk on the water, change is great until it calls you out of something He previously called you into and blessed.
So even with all the changes that a new year brings, planned or unplanned, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, let us concentrate not on the many uncomfortable changes we will experience, but rather on the fact that God has called us into a new thing. Let us embrace change and continue on this journey of faith and purpose, and trust that the Sovereign God is a God of change.

Happy Holidays and a Blessed 2023!