How Are We Going to Look Back to 2017?

2018 is here.

I know I’m not the only one that is glad to see 2017 go. There seemed to be a lot of tough stuff for many of us held in this past year. A LOT.

I sometimes wish it was different. Wish that last year wasn’t so tough.

Yet, I’m a different person than I was January 1st, 2017.

I can about guarantee you are a different person than you were.

Why? Why can we say most assuredly we are changed? 

It’s because of the tough stuff that came. Because of the battles we’ve fought with Satan this past year. It is because we’ve allowed God to form us into a closer image of what He wants us to be.

When we look back to 2017 are we going to think of all the rough times and fear the future? Are we going to look back and wish we hadn’t gone thru it all?

OR

Are we going to look at how we’ve grown since last year. Look at our relationship with God and how it has got stronger. Look at how we’ve learned to trust, just a tad bit more. Look at how our relationship with others has grown. Look at how powerful prayer was in the past year.  Look at how the Holy Spirit has taught us to hold on loosely to the things of this earth. Look at how the desire for Heaven has become sweeter.

The hard things that came last year… were not meant to make us bitter, fearful, or untrusting. No, friend, those hard things were to make us better, confident in Christ, and more trusting.

So as we move into 2018, let’s remember 2017 with a joy. Joy that we are not there anymore. Joy that God was with us each step of the way. Joy that we have grown into more of the person that God created us to be. ((Believe me, I am saying this to myself first))

 

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal,

but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 

All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things.

And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 

Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Philippians 3:12-16