Listen Up - New Year Devotional - January 14

A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other. — Anonymous

Researchers have determined that advertisers bombard us with approximately 2,000,000,007 messages a day telling us to buy, buy, buy. Then, there’s the news channels telling us to worry, worry, worry. And there’s all the other things we hear from teachers, bosses, spouses, kids… Wow! No wonder we have a hard time with New Year’s resolutions. We have so many people telling us what to do, we barely have time to think for ourselves… let alone think about what God thinks.

So if there is one resolution that I might offer as a valid one for someone who is in Christ, it would be this:

This year, just listen up. 

Ask Christ to create a quiet spot in your soul where just the two of you can meet, and talk, and rest as you go about your days. Sure, reach for the stars and plan for the future if you wish, but ask Him to make His presence a deeper reality as you go about life. 

You can claim the same promise that the prophet Isaiah gave Israel during some very difficult and noisy days of their own:

Your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!” (Isaiah 30:20-22, ESV)

Where might this lead? I have no idea. But God does. If you are aware of who He is in you, and if you reflect on the truth of His Word and listen to the Spirit, all the details will work themselves out step-by-step.

Lord Jesus, I thank You that You are with me, that You are in me. Resolutions might come in one year and go out the other. Open my ears this year, so that I can hear You and enjoy You at every junction, when You tell me to turn right or left. Amen.