How to Embrace Grace This Year

The hustle and bustle and pressure of the past few weeks seems to have leaked it’s way right into this one as well.  My inbox is clogged with hopeful promises.  The script has change, but the noise feels nearly as loud.  We’ve traded 25% off and free shipping, for the pressure to set goals, resolve, and focus – all the ways to properly kick off this new year.

And I get it.

I get plans.  I get purpose and intention.

But something feels a little hollow here as well.  So many voices crowd; there are so many echos.

The push to set goals and capitalize on another year feels like more hustle.

And I’m weak here.  I’m a magnet for this sort of thing.  I have a bone in my body that is bent on kicking down doors, loves crushing goals.  Tell me I can’t and I flex it.  It is a strength and a weaknesses all wrapped in one skin.

You have your own messy reflexes, right?

So the girl who a few years ago sat and penciled goal after goal, plan after plan, is sitting quieter this year.  I’m sitting without a pen. Like my finger on a map, I’m trying to trace back to the source of it all.

And the questions feel vulnerable.

God, what do you want for me this year?

Can I trade all of the striving and just choose you?

Can I hand you all of my dreams?  

Am I brave enough to trust you with all of it?

 

It feels weak and fragile, friends.  It’s not the flashy brand of resolution that sells books or goes viral.

But it feels like relief.  Like simplicity.  Like grace.

I’ve heard of the holy hustle, that we should chase grace and those pairings have such a nice ring to them.  They look cute on an Instagram graphic, pastel colors and a little laurel underneath.  They are lovely, but do they ring true?

Salvation was freely given (Ephesians 2:8).  Grace is also a gift (Ephesians 4:7).  We don’t have to chase gifts, friends.  Grace was never meant to be a race or a chase.  Isn’t that the point, that we don’t have to hustle for any of it?

What if we all just took a moment to breathe that into the New Year?

We don’t need to chase grace, we simply must choose to embrace grace.  It’s not a moving target.

 

This doesn’t mean goals are bad, friends.  Please don’t read that.  Stewardship is important.  Faithfulness is beautiful.  I am simply talking about choosing proper alignment.  “He is before all things and in Him all things consist.”  (Colossians 1:17)  As we set some new goals, dream some new dreams, maybe, just maybe, we should pause.  We should quiet the noise and properly establish who is leading it all.

That is harder than it should be when the world screams loud, but it is our brave choice.

 

I’ve been asked recently when the book is coming.  It feels lofty and flattering and weighty.  Should I be investigating that?  Should I be pushing that next brave step?  And the answer for me, the answer for now, is no.  (Please don’t think these answers come easily, I struggle and wrestle to hear and I’m far too frequently a very poor listener).  The answer is, I will wait for Him.  I will wait for His leading.  I will choose faithfulness here, learning and growing here, patience here while I prioritize what he has already placed in my care.  I will trust him with every dream, even the ones that scare me, fully believing he is leading.

While your big scary dream may come in different packaging, it’s really quite the same.  Can you see that?

So my prayer for this new year falls out something like this.

First and foremost, God, I choose you.  I give you my dreams and my plans and my hopes.  Still.  Again.  Always.

I will move, but I will wait on you.  Take what I have, Lord, and make it all yours.  I trust you with it all.  Show me the direction to go and give me patience not to overstep, not to push, not to hustle.  You govern all, you own all, you have my all.  There is no need to fight for space, to fight for time, to fight for anything – it’s yours.  To have you on my side, fighting for me, is always enough.  I see that, know that, believe that.  And I choose to live by that.  Bravely. 

Help me filter my hopes and dreams through you.  Sift my plans, shift my eyes, that I might see as you do.  Help me to love my family well, remembering always that you love them even more.  Help me to support my husband unfailingly and affirm the leadership you have bestowed upon him in our home.  Grow him, grow me, grow us.  

Help me to be patient and faithful with my gifts yet brave enough to grow them, rather than stow them.  Give me the courage to step, to say yes when you call.  God, help me to hear you above the noise.

I surrender this year to you, Lord.  The big and wild dreams, the small and daily faithful, before I ever step, I offer it all to you.  Make it what you will.  I’m all in.

 

This is my prayer before I set any goals and plans and it is my prayer for you as well, friend.  I so hope we can all start right here.  Whether you find 5 minutes to sort it out in prayer, whether you gather a few pages and write your own words or adopt these words as your own,  start it all here and let’s be amazed to watch where he leads us this year.

I’m all in.

Happy New Year, friends.  We have much to celebrate.