Happy New Year
Millions of people have this view at the new year: standing at the foot of this rocky, intimidating mountain. We want to do better and scale this mountain, to aspire to new heights and beat harmful habits we’d rather not live with. we, think of starting new habits – exercising, pursuing a new hobby, taking more time to reflect and not react to life’s challenges, commit anew to seek God where He is today in our lives. This is consecration.
We want to turn over to God a specific area of brokenness and say “Yes” to what we know He’s been waiting to mold in us.
Maybe the mile marker of a new year is the oomph! you need to commit to saying Yes to God in that area. Maybe you need to eat more vegetables, or breathe when you get angry, or stop overscheduling yourself and your family. Maybe you need to ask hard questions of yourself, and wait for the answers, or ask for forgiveness from God or someone in your life.
I want to surrender, too. I want to make a wide, silent space for God and His perfection in certain areas of my life.
Consecration is not only setting ourselves apart, or adding spiritual disciplines to our lives. Consecration literally means “associating with the sacred”. To better associate with God, we may decide to add healthy or spiritual habits to our lives as a response to consecration. “Associating with the sacred” means stepping onto God’s stage and allowing Him to use us for His divine, meaningful purposes. It also means turning our own face to that area of our lives where we know God’s been itching to see surrender. This side of heaven, we all have areas of our lives - hearts, souls, spirits and bodies - that could use a little more God’s creative, wonder working power and a little less us.
Well, here it is - a brand new year, and if it means anything to you, a brand new start in that space in your life you’ve needed God to inhabit. Get as close as possible to what you know to be God’s desires for you in that area, and being brave in surrendering any hurdles to Him!
As you decide how to yield, consecrate yourself in the way that the Holy Spirit is telling YOU to consecrate yourself, not the way He's told someone else to set themselves apart. This isn't a "consecrate-off". Your setting of yourself apart may look different than someone else. It's really the act of giving up those things that are a barrier to pressing in to God. It's the act of pushing everything out of the way that’s blocking your full, unadulterated view of the Face of the Father, that's the point anyway.
It really is the yielding to God that will set you free most.
Do you need this new year to be a new start as well? Take it, then. And open the door to God’s will for you, in specific corners of your heart that you think of often.
You won’t ever regret a monumental decision like letting Him work on you.
He is so skilled.
I’ll leave you with a quote, and say, “Happy New Year” to you.
Don't let who you were keep you from who you're becoming.
Bob Goff