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Has your world shattered and left you with no hope for the coming New Year? Would you like to talk with someone?
Kathy thought about the approaching New Year as she filed away the boxes of last year’s paperwork. There were things she would like to do differently in this new year. Oh, there were the usual things most of her friends were claiming as their New Year’s Resolutions:
• Lose weight
• Stop smoking
• Take more time for relationships
• Set goals
The list went on. The office was filled with laughter and the prospect of hope for change that a new year would bring. Yet Kathy knew, in a week or so, the chatter would turn to the broken resolutions and very few of the hoped for changes would become a reality.
She wanted something more for her life.
That night Kathy picked up her Bible and read Psalm 25. It was full of hope and an expectation of change that only God could bring to her life. She read it through a couple of times and underlined some verses that seemed to jump off the page, bringing fresh hope to her heart.
“Show me Your ways, O Lord, teach me Your paths; guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long” (Psalm 25:4&5).
The second time she read it through it struck her… here was her New Year’s resolution!
This would be the prayer of her heart everyday in this New Year. She grabbed a recipe card and wrote out the words, letting them soak into her soul. This was the change she wanted in her life…to keep her focus daily on the path God wanted her to walk in hope and in faith.
Take a little time over the next few days and read through Psalm 25 yourself. Consider reading it every day for a week and ask God to make the promise of hope come alive to your heart. Write verse 4 & 5 on a card or a stickie note and place it where you will see it regularly. Memorize it and let it soak into your soul and change your life.
Father God,
Thank you for the promise of hope You bring to my heart and my life. I do lift up my soul and my life to You now. I want to trust in You more fully this year. Tune my ears to hear Your voice more clearly. Teach me Your path and guide me in Your truth. In these changing days I need to discern Your ways for me. Help me to put my hope in You, not just occasionally or when I am in a hard place, but every day all day long. Thank you that You are God, my Savior! I ask this in the strong name of Jesus, amen.
Questions: What are your resolutions for the coming New Year? Take some time to read Psalm 25 and use some of those ideas to help you with your resolutions.
About this Author Gail Rodgers
Daily audio podcast: A second daily devotional, Walking with Integrity, today on the Men’s Devotional Blog
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To learn more about Him……spend more time in His Word, in prayer and with Him. My desire is that I would grow in faith….so much that there is no room for fear and doubt. Also that I never miss an opportunity to share Jesus and to be bold in sharing the Truth….without compromise.
Wow! This was what I needed – exactly. I want to grow and follow God’s will and recieve the life he has planned for me, but I get so lost so quickly. I start a morning devotional time and I am good for a week then something affects it one time and I abandon it. I was speaking to a friend last night and she told me that God knows we are flesh and forgives us for that but He rejoices when we choose to spend time with him. She said even if I only learned one verse and meditated on that every day for a few minutes it would be pleasing to God. I know myself enough to admit that I am an “all or nothing” person. If I can’t do something “exactly right” I will not do it. So if I wake up late and don’t have time for the morning devotion I think I “should” do, I don’t do it. And this email we recieved about taking Psalm 25 and immersing ourselves in it daily and in different ways (stickies, read daily, notecards, memorize) is something that I can do! I will read a sticky on my bathroom mirror even if I don’t “mean” to read it. It is there in my face! Thank you God for bringing me an answer to something I have been struggling with for so long. You want me as I am, as weak as I am, it is ok. YOU love me just as I am now. I trust you God! Thank you! Thank You!
i did not make any i am going to try to do the best i can in all that i do with Gods help
gail, thank you for the devotional and may you be blessed in the new year. as I have been reading devotionals today each deal with the impending new year a few hours away. yet from scripture to devotional books the message is the same: each year that passes away brings us closer to the time when ”this world as we know it will soon pass away”(1 Corinthians 7:31). therefore Psalm 25 is, for me, a constant. it has to be because I threw away the baggage of the past. I don’t know what the new year will bring for me but I have to expect stormy weather. naive i am not in thinking that I am ‘safe’ now that the Lord and I have been in re-newed relationship for almost two years and that I have weathered the storms of these past two years. I’m still on milk, not solids therefore I will walk one step at a time, one foot forward. but when I find myself taking two or three steps back, He will be there to teach me, lead me and continue to show me His ways.
to all who seek comfort here on this site, may God bless each and everyone of you and your families
”If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away;behold, all things have become new”. -2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV
Hi Heidi! Please don’t beat yourself up over distractions that Satan plants in all of our lives to hinder our devotion time to the Lord — we, indeed, are flesh, and God knows our unique personalities, which have strengths and weaknesses. That you hunger for Him, desiring more intimacy with our Savior, is pleasing to Him, and He will feed your hunger according to His knowledge of you! What works for some people doesn’t necessarily work for others, and praise Him, that He has unlimited resources to meet the wide-ranging needs and limitations of His children! Some find a routine, quiet devotion time a blessing, while others find more spontaneous personal worship/prayer keeps them in relationship with the Lord. I have found listening to Christian radio broadcasts while driving or doing chores, keeps me in His Word, and He has fed me banquets via this means! As He prompted my heart to yearn for Him, He also provided the means to learn of Him! God bless!
Thank You, Lord, for making us all so unique and perfectly appointed! We are, indeed, “fearfully and wonderfully made,” ‘Designer’ creations handstamped with Your image! Using the gifts that You have given us, lead us to a deeper knowledge of You, we pray! Draw us closer to You, that we would know the fullness of Your purposes for us, and grant us Your grace to fulfill them! In Jesus’ name, Amen!
Dear Gail, thank you for Psalm 25:4-5, I write up a weekly prayer list for our church and this will be our first one in the New Year as well as being a daily verse for the year for me. I am sending you Psalm 57, the last line in verse 3–God sends his love and his faithfulness. It is a verse that spoke to me about 2 weeks before Christmas, when I was stressed about everything that needed to be done. What an everyday comfort. God sends his love and faithfulness.
God Bless your day
Dianne
God
marilyn, you mentioned listening to Christian radio while driving or doing chores around the house. one day while I was driving I was surfing around and came across a Christian radio station being broadcast right from my own home town. i found the discussions as riveting as the music. it’s funny because I really didn’t notice that I no long listen to those ‘other’ stations anymore till recently. i have the same station on in the vehicle and on the stereo system in my sewing room. i listen to nothing but. the music i used to listen to, I have no interest. so for me, it was a stage that quietly slipped into my daily regiment of faith and I wasn’t even aware. what I find even more attentive is the live discussions on personal events or scripture. it was a natural transition that occurred. and even though i sometimes don’t know the song, i soon find myself humming along and my thoughts are totally directed to the Lord. His means are truly there for everyone.