Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Where He leads, I will follow.

It's a new year and that means time for a resolution. Mine? Stop procrastinating. I've been trying to keep up with this, but it's hard. I mean I've been working 35+ years on perfecting the art of procrastination. I'll continue to work on this, because I think it's important and will help in every area of my life. However, I read an article recently that made me rethink the whole idea of a New Year's resolution (http://justbetweenusmagazine.blogspot.com/2011/01/give-yourself-spiritual-makeover.html?spref=fb). The article's author, Laura Leathers recommends having a spiritual theme or goal for each new year. So I devoted this to prayer. I wanted to take this seriously and for it to be something that God wanted to teach me this year. I admit I got very hung up on trying to make it snappy and rhyme with 2011. For a couple of days I went around and around in my head; back and forth between waiting quietly for God's lead and listening to my own "great" ideas.

I must say that sometimes when you ask for God to show you something He really shows you! I must also say that sometimes I miss the forest for all the trees. During these few days of prayer and consideration, a few things happened that should have made it very obvious, but again those pesky trees were getting in the way. First off, a plan I had for the near future fell through. This caused me to question some other decisions that had hung on this plan of mine. So while I'm wringing my hands wondering what to do now, I was going back and forth about this theme as well. When I finally stopped being so preoccupied with all the leaves and bark and limbs that were in my way, I realized exactly what I need to learn. I need to learn to follow God's lead instead of asking Him to jump on board with whatever I have in mind.

I've decided to title my theme: Where He leads, I will follow (I abandoned the idea of it rhyming or being especially snappy). I've jotted my theme in the front of my Bible. I've shared my theme with a few people in hopes that they will pray for and encourage me. Rob and I are reading through The Purpose Driven Life together. I've found a few scriptures that support the need to follow His lead. I still need to write those in my Bible and start keeping a prayer journal to work through this and see how God is working. Since I'm working on that procrastination thing, I'm sure I'll get that started very soon.