For the New Year

Amazing grace-how sweet the sound…

A lot of folks initiate numerous changes when it comes to a New Year. I get it. You have a line in the sand that is drawn by time. You choose to make that a place of reference.

But what if your 2015 went well? Are you going to make changes? Or are you using the reference marker, to indicate the changes that you would like to implement?

We don’t need a reference, a marker or a calendar to change what we believe is in need of changing. Do we?

Yes, I am over weight, but I knew that last week. Perhaps I ought to read more Bible more or pray more. Or not…

What we “need” is to turn our lives over to God and let Him change us.

As believers we have the power of choice each and every day. We may recite (I like the reminder.) that we are the head and not the tail. But, even if I have a bad day, all I really did was forget my identity, slipping back to forgetfulness of who I am and whom I have been created to be. It is not what I do so much as it is what I am.

The Lord has placed a single word in my head for 2016 for me. The words is signposts. To be observant and help others determine where they might be, what they are seeing or facing and what the Lord is saying about it.

Many are offering words about what 2016 will look like or be like and I value their insight. But for me, what is working I will keep working. What is not, I will toss aside or give greater ability and time to.

A few years ago I gave a New Years’ word about airplanes, another year one about barns, last year I felt was the season of love.

If I have a word for this year it is the year of Amazing Grace.

Amazing Grace

The very thing that brought me in, will care for me and guide me.

God’s grace will not be “more or less”. It will be as abundant as ever. No limits, no boundaries.

It has the potential and the ability to change everything.

What will it change?

Families

Our greater understanding of grace and how it empowers us to be better parents, children and relatives will shape our nation.

Family is not an important thing. It’s everything. Michael J. Fox

Only yesterday I read of the Muslim cleric who spoke of his people to be marrying Europeans in order to change the face of their nations. Really? Grace is so much better, as like yeast it takes what is and expands upon it.

Married? Your life has the ability to be more loving, kind and thoughtful.

Children? Grace is the power to change in a person, whether you are the child or have children.

Relative challenges?-How sweet the sound and the voice In Christ who is grace.

Families will change because of you.

Friends

Your friends will need you more this year than ever before to be a person of grace. Calm in the storm, able to bring comfort and aid.

The greatest gift of life is friendship, and I have received it. Hubert H. Humphrey

Friendship is the bond that links hearts, heals communities and changes nations. This year, grace that knows no bounds will overcome boundaries and divisions, strengthening and building.

Reach out with conversation, bless with food and gifts and be the instrument of change where you are. You are there and God knows not only your name, but your address. He is being favor to express His goodness. Awkwardness melts in the knowledge of how good He is.

Your community is in need of you and the nature of Him through you.

Nation

Our nation is in need of His grace and the knowledge of Him.

A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people. Mahatma Gandhi

Our nation is like a drowning person. Perhaps it over ran its ability, did not observe the signposts, waited too long or was not prepared for the waters. It matters not. To save a drowning person there is much to be done. Assessment, action, calmness and knowledge. (And of course one must know how to swim.) Like someone drowning, it is swinging out at each and every opportunity to help.

Just as grace is the power to overcome sin, it is the empowerment to save. The empowerment to do what one is called to do. It is expressed in unmerited and undeserved favor. It goes hand and hand with wisdom and is coupled with love. It does not operate apart or in contention with its nature.

It has symptoms of anxiety and emergency, loudness and agitation, anger and fear.

STOP! It is time for an “army” to move in loving kindness and grace.

Whether Obama, Trump, Sanders, the economy, Islam or whatever your favorite rant of the day is, they are simply not beyond the reach of His hand of grace, nor was God surprised at their power, their actions or their speech. They are NOT the problem. They are but symptoms of something in need of God and the expression of God through His people.

It is time (Yes, 2016 is a line in the sand of demarcation, a marker of something.)that His people recognize the stone from which they were hewn and bring calmness to situations, peace where there is no peace and hope where hope has been forgotten or killed.

When the solution is simple, God is answering. Albert Einstein