The New Year

Happy and Blessed 2013 to you!  Whether you are ready or not, it is here!  Usually, I am not.  But I have actually been thinking already on the fresh start to the new year and things I want/must change.  What is it about changing the page in the calendar that makes me a little more energized to do this, I do not know!  As you are perhaps planning to give 2013 a makeover from 2012, I hope you have considered your spiritual life as well.  I used to have a Pastor who challenged us each year and encouraged us to be in God’s Word each day.  One year he gave us a planning sheet to fill out that incorporated all areas of life and I still look at that.  I truly miss his admonition to be in God’s Word each day, and yes, even to consider reading the Bible through in a year.  My sluggish heart needs accountability!

I did actually read through the entire Bible a couple of times and it was such a blessing!  I want to repeat it but I often feel defeated before I start since eight months of the year I am in Bible Study Fellowship and it is hard to do both in a meaningful way.  But this year I going to try again and I have a different plan to follow. 

Last fall I bought a daily devotional book called Sitting at the Feet of Jesus by Joanna Weaver.  I have read her book Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World and it is one of the most practical books on Christian living I have ever read. She has two other books, and I am in the middle of the one and hope to read the third this summer, Having a Mary Spirit, and Lazarus Awakening.  I gave Sitting at the Feet of Jesus to my daughters for Christmas this year.  In the back of the book is a Bible reading schedule for the year and the one I am going to use this year. This plan looks very doable. It is just a couple chapters a day, you rotate between the Old and New Testaments,  and read  in the Psalms and Proverbs  each day, which I love. If you are interested, Joanna Weaver has a Facebook page and a blog, Becoming His. She is going to journal her Bible reading this year on her blog. You can go here to download your own Bible reading schedule…you can customize it to start on any day or in any book of the Bible. So I hope you join me.

For Christmas this year Andrea gave each of us a Bible Reading Journal and I love it. It may have to be a yearly gift…hint, hint!  At the bottom of each page is a verse from Psalm 119.  In the back she added a Prayer Request section, a tracker for checking off each Book/chapter of the Bible and a Daily Reading Tracker, that just kind of gives you a visible accountability to how you are doing.  I know I am going to both use and enjoy this!

At the front of the devotional book is a prayer that I just love and want to make it my own.  I truly want to reach the end of 2013 a changed woman because I am in God’s presence each day!  Happy New Year!

Lord Jesus I give You my life.
I invite You to have Your way in me.
Take me and break me.  Shake me and make me.
Fill me and spill me.  Change me and rearrange me.
But whatever You do, Lord, don’t leave me the same.
Spirit of wisdom and revelation, I welcome Your work.
Open my eyes so I can see…my ears so I can hear…
I choose truth over comfort, challenge over complacency.
Lord, make me forever Yours.
And most of all, make me like You.
Amen