What God Taught Me in 2023
Happy New Year, Sisters in Christ!
I am so grateful that I get to share my faith journey with you all! I want to start off by thanking you from the bottom of my heart for reading along and allowing my story to be a tool to help your own faith journey!
God used this year as a pivotal learning, pruning year for my husband and I. The devotional 100 Days of Believing Bigger by Marshawn Evans Daniels has been such a huge help in learning how God wants me to believe in Him. It started in August and was completed by the end of the year. The book had ended with it saying nothing about your journey is a coincidence. Even that book ended at the very last day of 2023. That is how I know I was supposed to have it, along with many other reasons.
God taught me things even up to the final hours of 2023. Things that I need to go into 2024 with a fresh mindset, attitude, and heart-posture towards Him.
Be Still. God taught me that when the waves are choppy, and the winds are roaring, to just B E S T I L L and know that HE is GOD. You hear that popular bible verse almost every single day, but do you really know what it means to just BE STILL? I thought I did but 2023 showed me, heck no I didn’t fully grasp it. It is quite literal. When you are going through a situation or circumstance where you feel you are in the eye of a hurricane, you don’t want to act out like the storm is. You want to be still and remain dependent on Him. With this comes peace, understanding, clarity, and a knowledge that the creator of the world, and you; has you! He will not forsake you, or let you down. He will come through, even down to the wire of your situation. He will bring you out of the hurricane and into peace, warmth and pure intimacy with Him. He will protect you fully.
Your Tongue is Powerful! God taught me that the words you speak have authority over you and the world around you. Proverbs 18:21 teaches us that “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat it’s fruits.” Ladies, the bible does not lie to us. My husband and I, prior to meeting and even worse when we finally met earth side have gone through the loss of friends and so many people turning their backs on us and causing a lot of havoc in our relationship, marriage and just so much putting us down to make us feel worthless. It was to a point where we started to believe them over Yahweh Himself! We spent a few years just soaking in the presence of the enemy not realizing what was happening . People being taken over by the enemy to hurt us, make us want to hurt ourselves, and just destroy the calling on our lives. We noticed that when we talked negatively over ourselves there was death, anger, negativity all around us, winning! We still claimed the holy spirit and that we are born again Christians, but walking with negativity over us. Claiming with our tongues such negativity and it certainly caused many issues. Until one day, God woke us up to the damage our tongues had done. We finally asked Him to fix what we have let into our home and end this war. He taught us how our tongue has power and strength to cause life or death. We chose life. The day we chose to use our sword for good, was the day the favor poured onto us. Learn more about the power of the tongue and the biblical truth about it. There are so many verses that explain this!!
He will ALWAYS see us through. If God asks you to do something, DO IT. He will always be the first to see you through at that finish line. He will not let you fall over something He asked you to do. Even if you mishear what He is telling you to do, obedience is better than sacrifice, sis. He will still fix wherever you made a mistake. You are not your mistakes, especially when you follow Jesus.
God guides where He provides. This has been a training for many years, He is really engraining that into our noggins especially in 2023. In April, God had us move down south; (750 miles away from home), all while moving us away from the world’s economy into His Kingdom economy.. it’s been eventful to say the least! But the one thing I can say is that bible verse is also TRUE. The whole bible start to finish is TRUTH! He definitely provides and blesses you if you listen to where He leads you. Especially when you have no support system or all odds against you.
Pray and expect the outcome to be GOOD. Believe in what you are praying for to come to pass. God is GOOD. He wants to bless those who draw nearer to Him. This has been hard to get into my mind because I was raised to believe that we are here to be slaves, to only trust yourself to get ahead in life, to know you need a job to survive, etc. The truth is, you cannot serve two Gods. You cannot serve the god of this world and also do what Jesus is telling you to do. IT WILL NOT WORK. You can’t make your family happy and make God happy if what they are saying contradicts His still small voice. He also taught us that we have to draw our line in the sand. We have to choose a side once and for all. No more lukewarmness at all, because He no longer has time for that! We have to become separate from this world, to help His kingdom. Especially in these times that we are in.
Live Intentionally. Live everyday with purpose. Make everyday count.
In the very last hours of 2023, God taught me something that has been a question I have had for over a decade. It is so important to spend time with God alone, with your partner, and with other Christians to learn different things about the Lord. I have always fallen into procrastination when I become overwhelmed in the things I feel led to do. It causes me to become anxious and to completely give up, then leading me into depression. The major thing that always caused me to go down the procrastination rabbit hole was to wonder if any of what I am doing is God’s will or is it a waste of time!? I would search for CLARITY and wait on clarity before I made a move. God taught me that to want clarity is okay but it can also be an idol. An idol that you learn to trust more in, then your faith in God, Himself. That is what I have been so caught up in over the last 15-20 years. Over the year, He has shown me what I have done up until 11:00 PM the final night. He gave me this very important answer to my burning questions. It is in James 4:13-17 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. The answer to this I feel He gives me is make the plans, but submit them to Him so that He has your freewill to allow for Him to make necessary changes to your plans. He most importantly is telling us with that verse, who are we to think we will have tomorrow?! He does not owe us anything! He does not owe us MORE TIME!!!!
Everyone’s faith journey looks completely different! What He has and will do for me will look very different for you, and for your friend or family member. We all need encouragement and we all need support from other believers. We also all need daily time in the presence of the Lord to be our primary focus so that each day is walked out with Him leading us. I pray for over your year that you will do whatever God calls you to. I pray it will be all that you need it to be to progress in the Kingdom of God, and in your life and relationship with Him! We all need to hear from Him, “Well done, my good and faithful servant!”