How's Your New Years Resolution Going?

How's Your New Years Resolution Going?

So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic... For the LORD your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you."                          Deuteronomy 31:6 (NLT)

As I write this, the calendar says it is the very last day of February…and because it is leap year, we got an extra day.  So now, two months, (and a day), into 2016, I have to ask, How’s your New Years Resolution going?  Are you right on track with the diet and exercise program to shed those extra pounds that snuck up on you in 2015?  Are you sailing through the Book of Leviticus in your plan to read the Bible in a year?  Maybe your resolution was to get yourself living on a budget.  Have you done any impulse buying over the last sixty days?  Well, I’ve slipped up here and there too, so don’t beat yourself up over it. 

This morning, while mourning my inability to stick with something for any length of time and I found myself reflecting on the faithfulness of God.  So let me encourage you the way God encouraged me…

God was with me forty two years ago this month when I became a Believer in Jesus Christ.  He took a pathetic sinner full of pride, living a life of self-endulgence, extending mercy and grace—He saved a wretch like me.  He was with me as I discovered who He was, is and always will be.

He was a shoulder to cry on when I was going through a heartbreaking divorce. He was with me in the dark times of sadness and lonliness.  He protected me and kept me from going down the wrong path.  He heard the cries of my heart and blessed me with an amazing husband to love me and my children.  He put up with my tantrums and anger and then taught me His way of doing life as we brought our family up in those emotionally-charged, blended family years. 

My faithful and amazing God gave me favor in my writing, to publish first a book, then dozens of articles, and even write a column for a magazine.  He was with me as I entered ministry through all its ups and downs.   He orchestrated a marriage of ministries between mine and my friends in Uganda.  He has somehow used me—a nobody—to raise up a hospital and child sponsorship program in Uganda.  And when I couldn’t handle it alone, he brought me the help of someone who cares about it as much as I do.  He has used me, a housewife from Arkansas, to share the good news of the Gospel across the U.S. and all around the globe.

My God has carried and even prospered us through financial struggles in our business when we should have lost everything.  My God has blessed my family, multiplied it, (15 grandchildren), and is bringing all of them to faith in Him, one by one—even allowing me to baptize some of them.

And He’s not finished with me or any of us yet.  And he doesn't do good things for one and not for another.  He is not a respecter of people.  He loves you too.  Does it matter if I stay on the diet and lose those extra pounds I determined to lose at the first of the year?  Well, I’m going to keep working at it, but in light of the bigger picture, it is okay if I fail because my God promised to never leave us or forsake us.    And He always keeps His Word.