Need some help with guidance through the 2022 and beyond? You're not alone, and the Lord can make it easy and clear for you and me.
The new year is upon us already. Time seems to fly when you’re having fun huh!
2022 is upon us, and you might be one of the millions of people planning to grow and change some part of your life. Have you made some New Year's resolutions? God can help you with those if you pray over them. You might need some good guidance from the Lord today. Ask, listen, hear and then wisely apply God's word.
Are you going to follow the Christ of the Bible and stay in the will of God for you, or are you going to trust / ask Him to follow you? You laugh, but people do the later all the time. We do what we and then ask God to bless it – I’ve foolishly done that before.
We can't just divorce Him from our life, schedule and then get busy in our own sufficiency. Presumptions. Why miss use up some of that dash in-between the dates of your birth and departure that’ll go on your headstone.. that represents your very life?
I’m not against planning at all, but we can’t just do life as if God will bless whatever you decide you will do. We need to inquire of Him as to what He would have each of us do.
“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Ps. 90:12
My life is in His hands and I pray I can make every day count to glorify God.
“Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am.” Ps. 39:4
“And this we will do if God permits.” Hebrews 6:3
Some so called believers us verses on the brevity of life to live it up partying almost every day. Others use these verses to justify never taking a smart risk – life is so short. Why try? Others use these verses to justify their lazy passivity. We’re not to be fatalists, we can earnestly pray and wisely act in 2022.
The Puritans used to sign their letter with D.V. = Deo Volente (Latin terms meaning “God willing.” There’s gobs of wisdom in that D.V.)
"..but took leave of them, saying, “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem; but I will return again to you, God willing.” And he sailed from Ephesus." Acts 18:21 nkjv
"..But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power." 1 Cor 4:19
"For I do not wish to see you now on the way; but I hope to stay a while with you, if the Lord permits." 1 Cor. 16:7
“We can hardly believe that another year has flown by”. Or “It only seems like yesterday that we were writing last year’s greetings.”
People look back over another year, wondering where the time has gone. We seem to live in a culture that constantly feels pressurized by time – deadlines that have to be met, an awareness that the clock is always ticking. If we say that a person has “time on their hands”, we have come to equate that with laziness. James says the brevity of life is the reason we need to walk humbly with God. What were they basically saying? This…
“Look here, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.' How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog--it's here a little while, then it's gone. What you ought to say is, 'If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.' Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil. Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.” Jas 4:13-17 nlt
- We can do life without God if we really want to.
- We can determine life without God if we really desire that.
- We can describe life without God if that's really our beloved goal.
Please determine now to let Jesus rule without rival in you. Let Him by His Spirit describe real life and His direction to your heart. Yes, determine now in your heart to do your life real close in following Christ on His terms!
- Inverted Selfishness (James 4:1–3). The wars among us are caused by the wars within us. We want to live too independently and please ourselves, even if it hurts somebody else. If we are not careful, even our prayers can become selfish!
- Worthless Worldliness (4:4). Because Abraham opted to live separated from sin BUT NEVER LIVE INDEPENDENTLY FROM GOD, he was the friend of God (2:23); but Lot little by little YET DESICIVELY chose to live too independently becoming the friend of this corrupt and perverse world system (Gen. 13:1–13. Also muse on 1 John 2:15–17).
- Dangerous Hubris (4:5–10). Satan knows how to use pride to defeat you as he defeated Eve (Gen. 3:1–6). Are you laughing when you should be weeping over your own sins? Are you submitting to God's direct or delegated Authority while resisting the devil. Or have you in a religious sort of way been resisting the Lord?
- Diversionary Criticism (4:11–12). One of the easiest ways to hide our sins is to be too busy trying to expose the sins of others. Gossip and slander grieve the Spirit and divide your forever family. God called us to be witnesses of what we've seen, experienced, heard and done.. not judges!
- Boasting in the Flesh (4:13–17). Life here is short and the future is unknown, so go prayerfully do the will of God today. When you make plans, inquire of the Lord and His Book first. Always say, “If the Lord wills” (Prov. 27:1).Ship in the water?.. good!.. or is the water in your ship and fillin' it up? Bad! What's SO good is the Church in the world bein' and clearly giving witness of Jesus, but what's super lame is the world in the church sinkin' it.
“A whole new generation of Christians has come up believing that it is possible to ‘accept’ Christ without forsaking the world.” ~ A.W. Tozer
The founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, a man who has amassed billions in personal wealth was once asked what one thing he would wish for in life. He reportedly replied, “More time”. That’s one thing in life that not even the wealthiest person can change. It’s ironic that in a culture so committed to saving time, that is the one thing we feel increasingly deprived of. We talk euphemistically about “saving time”, but in actual fact time can only be spent, not saved.
One of the differences between the African view of time and the Western view is that in Africa people tend to see life as a series of events. When these have happened or been dealt with, then the remainder of the time is for “being”. By contrast, we in the West feel that time has to be constantly managed so that every moment is ‘productive’.
The deficiencies of such a mindset become more apparent to us at times such as the advent of a New Year when we habitually reflect whether the past twelve months have constituted a ‘good’ year, or a ’bad’ one. Even the Queen has been through at least one “annus horribilis”.
Such annual reflection reminds us that many of the events of the preceding twelve months were happenings that were outside our ability to manage or anticipate. Royalty is no exception. Equally, we sense that whatever we have written in our diary for 2012 is provisional, as our control over life’s events is so limited.
For many, the way to come to terms with what cannot be anticipated or managed is to adopt the philosophy of “Que Sera Sera - whatever will be, will be”. If life’s events cannot always be controlled by choice, then chance is what determines your destiny.
But the Christian approach is different. The Bible comes out clearly with the truth that God sets the times and seasons. It is God who decides whether 2012 will be a good year or bad year for me. And how I respond to God’s calendar is the secret of whether my faith grows in the year ahead.
James 4:13 instructs those who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money” with the reminder, “You do not even know what will happen tomorrow.. Instead you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that’”.
It’s not that the Bible condemns wise forward planning (it doesn't), but it’s simply that we should never leave God out of our future plans.. without inquiring of Him like King David often used to do. Ask Him first, instead of decide on your own.
In the old days people used to add the letters D.V. to all such intentions, an abbreviation for a short Latin phrase, Deo Volente, which means ‘God willing’.
The mere use of the phrase itself can become a pious cliché – perhaps that’s why it has largely disappeared – but the attitude of humble dependence on God as we face an uncertain future is the vital thing to retain.
Back in the Old Testament days, King David wrote “My times are in your hand, Lord” Psalm 31:15
Put your life, heart, plans and times (moments of life) in His hands. In simple terms, Let Jesus guide you on what to put in or take out of your life. Whatever I put in my journal (or diary if you have one) for 2012 will be of no significance compared to what God puts in my diary. When we recover the attitude of “Deo Volente”, then we will be able to echo the prayer attributed to Moses in Psalm 90 – “Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
