8 is the Number of New Beginnings

New Year’s Eve 2014 marked the completion of 7 years of freedom for me! January 1, 2015 marks the first day of year 8. 8 is the number of new birth or new beginnings and I am eagerly anticipating the next era of adventure Jesus has in store for the 2 of us! I am currently doing a “year end review” of my 2014 journals. Hindsight is 20/20, highlighting God’s faithfulness. Christ gets the credit for all my victories and HIS grace covers all my failures. HIS Presence is Ever-present and “God With Me” is the greatest gift of all!

Journaling my journey on “the Blog” is just one more way to imitate Christ. Christ literally is THE WORD:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

HE is our personal guide and our written map. HE took HIS journey before the people and HE continues to journey with us from within us. Jesus shares the stories of imperfect people seeking and finding a perfect God. Their progress gives us hope and their “Compass” points to the same “True North” as ours.

“We all freely admit that we live on this earth as strangers and exiles, meaning our eyes are fixed upon our true home-land… The fact is that we long for a better country altogether, nothing less than a heavenly one. Because of our faith, God is not ashamed to be called our God and in sober truth HE has prepared for us a city in Heaven.” (ref. Hebrews 11:14-16 PHILLIPS)

I will not let this grace go wasted!

“But because God was so gracious, so very generous, here I am. And I’m not about to let HIS grace go to waste.” (1 Cor 15:10)

Instead of covering up my life-course (the good, bad and the ugly), I will let HIM use every beautiful and broken piece to illuminate HIS way for those lost or imprisoned coming behind me.

The process is the point!

We have become a society obsessed with self-extermination or self-examination ad nauseum!

Journaling is a spiritual discipline that often gets overlooked! It is not a diary; it is a dialogue between me and JESUS, between you and Jesus!

Seeing our life in writing helps us to digest, absorbing nutrients and eliminating the waste. Journaling is a refiner: impurities are skimmed off and gold is left behind! Journaling allows us to look back and see areas of growth and areas that still need pruning. We see prayers that have been answered and prayers we need to keep praying. We see ruins that now sing and areas of desolation that were blessings in disguise. We see the lyrics to our heart songs and there are more colors than Crayola could ever imagine!

One school of thought says that if we do not speak it (or write it), it will go away, or better yet, be as if it never happened.

Based on the documented cases of depression and anxiety, it is safe to say that that method does not work. I credit Joyce Meyer with the term “battlefield of the mind” and a battlefield it is.

Buried landmines are strategically positioned to blow up unexpectedly, no matter how lightly we tread! Simply uncovering a landmine is not enough. That is simply an anticipated explosion, as opposed to a surprise attack! A land mine must be uncovered and disarmed in the light by an expert with gentle hands and good eyesight. That Expert is CHRIST! HE holds us in the palm of HIS hand, shines HIMSELF(The Light) and sees everything, for there is nowhere we can go to get away from His Gracious Gaze!

I pray you take the journey along side me, with Christ as our Guide and Map. I can promise you that our paths will look different but, as followers of Christ, we will end up at the same “True North”! We share the same Compass but our routes begin at different “current locations”. We will all be wise to avoid short cuts, stick to the map, listen to Siri(Haha) GPS (God’s Positioning System) and actually do what HE says.

Write it down, don’t “white it out”! A cover up will always come out, painfully. Wounds that are concealed without cleansing will eventually kill us!

“There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.” (Luke 12:2-3)

“The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Cor 5:17)

“Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19)

No matter where you begin, the point is that you do! We will never finish a race that we do not start and sometimes the beginning is simply admitting that we haven’t!

“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin…” (Zech 4:10)

Happy New Year!
The Best Is Yet To Come!
GoGod