A Spiritual Year in Review

 

Recently, it was suggested to me that I go through my Bible studies, notes, blog, and gratitude list to see what God has been teaching me. By looking at your journal or any of the other places I mentioned you can begin to piece together where God is heading in your life.  What are the themes that He is teaching you?  By getting an overview, can you see His direction?  This is not a new idea.  A friend shared this concept with me. She got the idea from Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God.  I haven't read this book yet, but am eager to!

So I went back...here are snippets of what God has been teaching me over the past year or so.  Some of them are quotes.  If I know the author I have listed them.

-The importance of giving thanks BEFORE the miracle shows up --from various authors

-The only way to have strong faith is to endure trials

-Lean into God.  He will work it out.

-Kindness: Harmless as doves
Goodness: Shrewd as snakes  (From Beth Moore)

-Remember Judas

-"Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you."  Zechariah 9:12

-Joy is the result of relating God's way to God's people.

-To know Him is greater than any loss I would suffer.

-Love is never in vain.

-Relationships have been designed by God not for human happiness but as instruments of redemption.

-Jesus Jail

-Victims can become victors when they see the value of their losses.

-We re-present Him in every interaction.

-In Christ is anything ever really loss?  --Ann Voskamp

-Number griefs as graces.  --Ann Voskamp

-Gratitude redeems.

-II Chronicles 20 (such an instrumental passage for me this year).

-Plot twists  Philippians 1:19...He can change any circumstance and redeem it.

-We don't fall out of His care.

-He's already there.

-Joseph's story is speaking to me all over again.

-He waits.  He weeps.  He wows.

-Pride is the death of grace.

-We are vending machines.  When our buttons get pushed, what pops out?

I am still pondering what all these things mean.  But I do see an underlying theme of God's redemption.  We may go through heartache, but there is ALWAYS a plot twist in the end whether you are...

Joseph, the slave who becomes second-in-command

Lazurus, the dead who walks

Jehosaphat, the king who shows up for the battle he doesn't need to fight

or

ME

or 

YOU

We don't know the end of our story, but God is already there at the end.  He knows what circumstances He will turn for our benefit. He knows what He will use for His glory.  He knows that in the end all that really matters is the end.  His End.  To our story.  I can't wait to see Him at the back of the book when all the plot twists will be revealed!