I awoke to a New Year.....2025, what will it bring my way?
I sat with the Lord in the early morning hours and soon began sensing His thumb.
One of my personal goals was to not bring the past into 2025. Let me be more specific; it was to not bring the negatives from the past into 2025.
It was an honorable goal before the Lord. As a matter of fact, this was my petition before the Lord for the entire month of December.
It wasn't long sitting with the Lord before I realized what He was highlighting in me that aligned with this personal goal: cynicism.
Cynicism is the propensity to distrust others and their motives.
If the past three decades trained me in anything, it's this.
But cynicism is a cancer in the soul. It eats away at true faith, true hope. And it is terrifyingly subtle.
To distrust is to inherently dislike, and if we are not careful, we will find the object of our dislike to be humanity itself; the very object that Christ came to seek and save.
How can we walk in union with Him if we dislike what He loved unto death?
Now, be careful here so as to not misunderstand me. I am not encouraging anyone to stay in close proximity to damaging individuals, but the caution comes when we overlay the negative experiences of one relationship upon all relationships. It is a natural tendency that must be countered in God's power and with His wisdom.
If we are not careful, our negative experiences subtly replace our trust in God FOR life's experiential knowledge. I don't know about you, but I never want to abide in the space where life's experiences have superseded my trust in my Creator such that I lean more into them than Him!
I sat with Him, realizing the blessing of His thumb. What He applies His thumb to in our life, He heals IF we confess, acknowledge, and release into His hands, our Healer's hands.
I acknowledged the truth of what He was pointing out, and I found myself with such overwhelming gratitude concerning the awareness that He was intent on removing cynicism from my life. It will be a walking out of, to be certain; a decision to not be immediately suspicious of people's motives. Understand, I cannot say I trust Him, while at the same time, guarding my heart and being all but misanthropic.
This is all apart of His command to "turtle no more", (linked here) to be restored as a fully functioning believer who is planted upon a solid, non-contradicting foundation.
I have to acknowledge my past had led to a foundation with cracks in it; where action didn't always align with belief nor belief with action. I don't want that to be the case moving forward. In fact, it can't be the case moving forward if I am to walk in all that God has stored up for me.
God's thumb is indeed a gift because with it comes healing to my fractured soul and greater freedom in His spirit.
May you, too, sit with Him. What area of your own life do you sense Him putting His thumb on?
Resist bristling to the conviction, and understand liberation is a mere breath away in the utterance of two simple, yet powerful words: Yes, Lord.
Godspeed! 🤍
