In place of New Years resolutions, my family has started to choose one word for the year. This word is carefully chosen in order to be our focus throughout the New Year. For me, I always choose a word that reflects an area of desired growth in my faith.
In preparation for the world race, there was one word that kept popping up.
F R E E D O M.
It came up in conversation with mentors, friends, and even in my online classes.
The World Race training camp in August was the beginning of my new journey of freedom in Christ. Every session we had held a message inviting us into a new area of freedom. Freedom from tradition, performance, fear, doubt, shame, comparison, and more. I always thought I was living in freedom, but there were still things locked away that I was not aware were keeping me from fully living in Jesus.
For example, I always placed pressure on myself to be as perfect as I can in order to please God, family and friends. If I wasn’t on my A-game, was I really reflecting Christ?
God has granted me a new freedom from performance. I am learning more and more about the beauty in letting others see me. See me at my best, and see me at my worst. (It helps that I am stuck with the same group of people for a whole year). And this freedom from performance is just the beginning.
All this to say, my word for the year is Freedom. I chose this word because I desire to live in a deeper level of freedom in Jesus each day, and invite others to receive this freedom as well.
While I was sitting in church this morning I was reflecting on this word and was reminded of my key necklace. At launch our mentor Austin gifted all racers with a key necklace that contained one word. When he announced this, I secretly was praying that my key would say freedom. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Excited, I grabbed my envelope and quickly opened it up to see what it said, and it said….Intimacy! Okay God, I guess that works too.
I really do have a deep desire to have a greater intimacy with Jesus. I want to hear his voice clearer and understand his heart more. What has been awesome is that each step I have taken to find that greater intimacy with him, has also given me a greater sense of freedom.
The true key to freedom is intimacy with Jesus.
God literally gave me a key that says intimacy because he knew I wanted to focus more on the concept of freedom this coming year. And because the key to freedom is intimacy, spending time with Jesus, talking to him, hearing from him in scripture is helping me unlock doors in my soul that has kept him out. I am excited to see where the next 8 months of the race take me, and more areas of my life I can surrender and find freedom in Him.
Are you living in freedom?
Do you have a word for next year?
Happy New Year everyone!
