Where do you go?

Where do we go to find a new start in the New Year?

They gather to watch a ball drop in Times Square, they stand for hours in the brutal cold and feel this is the highlight of the New Year.  But as you look at their faces, which are filled with excitement to see that ball drop and a new year begin, do they truly know where they are heading? Are they ready for what lies ahead? 


As I look at all their faces, I cannot help but wonder what lies within them.  

Is the inside as overjoyed and happy as the outside?

Before the list of goals and resolutions, as Christian women, we should be looking within to be sure we are spiritually strong to move ahead.  Are we looking back at the blessings over the past year?  Sure, we all have faced our trials in the past year, but have we thanked God for those abundant blessings? 

Before we look ahead, may we look up and thank God for helping us move along in this life.  A grateful heart for His presence and listening ear, for His compassion for our failures and our frailty. 

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While the world is celebrating and we are afraid, where do we go? 
Where do we go when we are fearful of the days ahead? 
Where do we go when we feel as if no one cares?   
When we are desperate for someone to listen and feel despair, where do we go? 
Do we run into a cave as David did? He had many around him, yet feels alone.  Psalm 142  
When we are depressed and overwhelmed (as Moses, Jonah, David), where do we go? 
When we are ashamed, do we go to the well at noon, as the unnamed woman?   John 4 

Before we make plans and resolutions for the New Year, may we KNOW where to go. 

May we take time to come to God in prayer and bring Him our burdens. Then leave them there. May we take time to focus on Him and ask for His guidance and strength for the New Year.  For there will be dark times up ahead, without a doubt.  It is in those times that we need to know where to go. 

We cry out to the One who holds all our tomorrows. 

Jesus wept, He understands.  He felt pain and sorrow, ridicule and disappointment.  
He will allow us to see beyond this moment of suffering, for nothing separates us from Him. Nothing.  Most importantly, the Lord will never leave us. 

Prayer... I cannot imagine what my life would be without it.  
Thanking Him, talking with Him, crying out to Him, and quietly listening and waiting. 

He can provide immediate comfort.  He can begin an infusion of courage and strength that words cannot convey.  He instills a sense of confidence to endure. 

None of us want to dwell on what lies ahead in a negative sense, but in the hands of an almighty God, our trials become tools.  He uses hardships to shape believers into His woman of faith.  Jesus allowed the disciples to experience the fear and anxiety of being in a boat on a raging sea.  He permitted them to suffer because He had something far mare important to teach them.  He wanted them to recognize their helplessness...HIS sufficiency and their dependence on Him.