More and More in 2024!

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, then you probably know that I usually follow, what I would consider to be, a divinely directed theme over the course of each year.  Beginning in late November and then throughout December, I will begin to pray and keep a spiritual eye out for a word of direction for the coming year during my daily Bible study time each morning.

Sometimes it is just a single word that pops up in my heart, or at others times… like for this coming year, it may be an entire phrase… that most times will rhyme!  Then, once I’ve received what I consider to be His leading, I will search through my Bible to find the particular verses of scripture that work to empower my pursuit of the purpose that He has given to me.

The theme for 2023 has been that “God is bringing a cheerful me to the place He’s called me to be in 2023”, with a scriptural foundation based on Hebrews 10:35-36. You see, at the beginning of this year, I had every intent and purpose to move, before the end of summer, to Tennessee and be near our older son and his family. But as the year progressed, there were a series of events that got me to thinking that maybe it was more important to stay here for a while longer with our other three children and their growing families.

And so, I began to understand the theme that God had given me in a new light.  I realized that the place that God was bringing me into was more a place of submission to the His will, a sense stability and satisfaction in my heart (since I really, really don’t care for the geography in Oklahoma)… than that of a new physical location and the beautiful mountains that I miss so dearly.

Then, in the beginning of December, as I finally yielded to His will and began to meditate on the future, I suddenly found myself grabbing a pen one afternoon, and writing down on the back of an envelope the statement that “The adventure continues… with more and more in 2024!”  And as the excitement began to build inside of me, I spoke aloud and asked “What kind of adventures are we talking about here?  And in one fluid motion, I continued to put my pen to paper and wrote “Adventures in Faith, Adventures in Grace, Adventures in Joy and Adventures in Peace!”

Now, I don’t know about you… but that brings an exciting surge of faith-filled adrenaline into my system… especially considering the fact that I didn’t plan on staying in my current location!

Once I had the theme… and you’ll notice that it rhymes… it was easy to come upon the right scripture to back it up and empower it to work in my life.   You’ll remember the conversation between the angel Gabriel and the virgin Mary, when the angel told her about the miraculous event in which she would play a center role in, and he summed it up saying,

“For no word from God shall be void of power.” (Luke 1:37 - Revised Version) 

To which she replied,

“And Mary said, Behold, the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word…” (Luke 1:38 – Revised Version) 

The first time I read that verse this year, I had an immediate revelation and called out as I looked at a picture of Piper, from the early years of marriage that I have hanging on my study wall, and said, “that is exactly what happened to YOU and I back in the mid-1970’s!”

For you see, at that time, we began reading some books on faith that set a fire to our faith-life that we stirred up and stoked throughout the rest of our lives… and it was ignited when our spiritual eyes were opened and we realized, with a simple and child-like faith the truth that “No word from God shall be void of power” and excitedly agreed and confessed together, that as an adopted son and daughter of the Most High God… “Be it done unto US according to God’s word!”

And through the years that followed, the Lord repeatedly reminded us of that revelation and of the confession we made… right up to and including the beginning of this month when that small-still-voice on the inside of me declared that it was, once again, the way in which I would successfully and enjoyably experience the countless “Adventures in Faith, Adventures in Grace, Adventures in Joy and Adventures in Peace” that He has in store for me in 2024!

And YOU know what?  You too can experience many of those same ADVENTURES and see the miraculous power of God working in, for and through your life… by believing and acting with a simple and child-like faith… in the truth of His Word that declares unto you and me that,

“No word from God shall be void of power… and may it be unto me according to Your word!”

Now that’s a promise from God that should also set the expectations for YOUR New Year into His mode of MORE and MORE in 2024!

So. what more can I say?  GO FOR IT!  Pretty exciting… wouldn’t you say?