In 2020, I vowed to chose freedom.
I chose to live in the freedom Christ has awarded me.
Free from my burdens.
Free from my shame.
Free from myself and the person I was not proud to be.
Free from people who have pulled me down and led me astray.
Free from my thoughts.
Free from my hurts and my brokenness.
Last year I made the choice not to live to please the world.
I decided to choose Christ. Over and over again.
I chose to go against the flow of things if I had to.
I chose to make decisions that benefit His kingdom. Even when they were more difficult for me.
Because I have realized I have the freedom to do so, and I have finally began to utilize that freedom.
I am no longer the girl who needs another person to feel worthy.
I am no longer the girl desperate for others.
The ONLY thing I have spent the past year being desperate for is more of Christ and less of me.
But where does that leave me now?
2020 threw a countless number of unexpected, hard, messy things at us all. It made choosing freedom excruciatingly hard sometimes. However, I did my best to do it anyway.
This left me in a weird spot coming into 2021.
While I feel as though I’ve made extensive progress in choosing freedom in many areas of my life, I have found myself oftentimes lacking the motivation and desire to do the things most important to me.
I’ve found myself feeling as though what I want from the things and relationships I value most will never happen. As a result, I’ve overextended myself wrecking havoc in my personal and spiritual life.
I’ve gotten so busy doing all of these “good things” that I’ve brushed off being with Jesus and simply waiting and resting in His presence. You see, I’m so impatient that waiting and resting is far from something I thrive in doing. To put it bluntly, it’s two things I hate.
Because of my hatred for these things, I’ve fully immersed myself in various activities to the point that I am never resting. I am never quiet. I am never waiting.
In turn, I’m finding myself in head spaces I don’t want to be in nor do I need to be in.
In coming to this realization over the past few weeks, I’ve felt God calling me to pursue growth in this next year. I have wrestled continuously with what He meant by this for several weeks.
Growth to me seemed so vague.
I’ve recently realized that’s because it purposefully was.
In fact, as I have struggled with choosing a word for 2021, I have felt God lay on my heart a word for 2021 I find even more vague than growth.
Renewal.
When I think of what renewal means and how I can apply it to my life this year, there are so many things that come to mind.
For example, I need to focus on the renewal of the perspective I hold of my own life. Over and over the past year I have found myself coming up with more reasons to hate who I am than love who I am. That’s not the person I want to be.
I want to fall completely in love with myself.
So, I’m vowing now to strive for renewal in the way I view myself this year.
But it’s even more than that.
More than renewing my sense of self, I vow to strive for renewal in my relationships with others this year. I will be the first to say I put building relationships on the back burner in 2020.
I did not always love my friends in the best ways possible.
I did not always have my heart in it with my kids at work.
I was not always caring about my family the way I should be.
Put simply, I got this idea in my head that building and strengthening relationships with others was simply not worth it. Not this year. Not right now.
But I was wrong.
Relationships and community are some of the most important things in life. Building and pursuing Godly relationships with others is one of the most important aspects of living life freely in Jesus. I mean, just look at Jesus himself. He was continually pursing relationships with others. Yes, He took time alone with the Father, but He always returned to building and pursing relationships.
That’s the kind of mindset I want to have towards relationships.
And I’m starting now.
I’m proclaiming renewal over my perspective of relationships this year.
While renewing my sense of self and perspective on relationships are both huge actions I intend to do this year, more importantly I want to pursue renewal in my relationship with Jesus.
Entering 2020, I was on fire for Jesus. I had committed to choosing freedom in Him, and I was ready to take on life this way. I did it really well for awhile, but in classic 2020 fashion, things started to go down hill.
I lost my desire to be close to Jesus.
I forgot how a daughter of the King was to carry herself.
Truthfully, bettering my relationship with Jesus felt like “too much work,” and I was content to stay stagnant in my relationship with Him
I was stumbling through life on the high I had in January, but the reality is I can’t live my life counting on those highs.
Yes, being on fire for Jesus and experiencing those highs are amazing. Honestly, it’s an indescribable experience to feel Jesus in that way.
However, I have finally accepted that I have to stop expecting that high when I’m not making an effort to pursue Him at all costs.
Where does that leave me? Well, it leaves me realizing that the only way to maintain that post-conference high is to continually pursue Jesus.
That’s what I want to do this year.
Renew my relationship with Jesus.
Yes, renewing my relationship with myself and those in my life is important; however, renewal in both of those areas should be an outflow of my relationship with Jesus. If I’m not truly pursuing a relationship with The Savior of the universe, how can I expect any other relationship I pour into to succeed? I’m challenging myself to acknowledge this, and do better this year.
From freedom to renewal: bring it on 2021.
Sincerely,
Mads
Comments