Experiencing Holidays With Jesus: Happy New Year!Chikamu

The best thing about life is you never know what can happen in a new year. I like to think of each new year as a wonderful ongoing surprise party from God Himself!  Each day of each new year is always full of surprises, wonder, awe, and wonderful events and memories. 

No matter what we go through in life, whether it’s goodness or life challenges – even grief – God is always so faithful to make life a true adventure with Him. He always makes all things new!

No matter what unfolds during this year, make the commitment to stay close to the Lord, find out and learn as much as you can about Him and through Him, seek to be as close to His beautiful heart as possible, and serve, obey, and love God with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength.

As with any year, there will be joy…as well as sorrow. There will be the happiest memories of your life…with the possibility of sad memories you’d much rather forget. There will be times of plenty…as well as times of lacking. Times of fullness...and times of drought. Times of celebration...and quiet moments for reflection.

God is so great to give us the four main seasons of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter...as well as so many wonderful seasons of “life” mixed in as well.

Let’s commit to thanking God each and every day…celebrating God‘s great love and His wonderful gift of life each day we have breath…fully loving and appreciating our magnificent God, family, friends, church family, and every loved one God places in our life…being grateful for even the smallest things...and making as much of a difference as we can in the areas God tells us to.

There’s a quote I have always loved. In fact, my sister used to share this quote with me while growing up:

“What we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to Him.”

May we live out this quote and give God our very best – the exquisite gift of becoming all He would have us to be throughout this fresh brand new year! May we – together with God – make this our very best year yet!

Happy New Year! Praying you and your loved ones truly celebrate each day throughout the precious gift of this brand new year! May this year be such an amazing adventure with God, that you look back on December 31 with incredible memories of this precious, once-in-a-lifetime gift!

Activity: each day of the new year, ask God, “What do You have in store for me this day? Thank You for the gift of today...how can You and I fully unwrap this great gift together?”

Prayer: “Heavenly Father, What an extravagant, wonderful gift You truly are! Help us to live wisely every day of this new year – and throughout the rest of our life. Help us to be so excited about life and all You wish to do through us to help others! We dedicate this new year to You for Your joy and glory! We love You so much, Lord! In Jesus precious name we pray, Amen!”

Thank you for allowing me the privilege of encouraging you! For more information, go to: https://www.griefbites.com – and be sure to check out our other YouVersion reading plans:

1. Grief Bites: Finding Treasure In Hardships: https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/912-grief-bites-finding-treasure-in-hardships

2. Grief Bites: Doubt Revealed: https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/954-grief-bites-doubt-revealed

3. Grief Bites: A New Approach To Growing Through Grief https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/862-grief-bites

4. Grief Bites: Hope For The Holidays: https://www.bible.com/reading-plans/1964-grief-bites-hope-for-the-holidays

5. Experiencing The Holidays With Jesus: Christmas~ http://bible.com/r/3V5