A New Year...

How many of you can't help but get excited about the possibilities 2012 holds?  Me either!  It seems no matter what is going on in my life, I always get excited when a new year begins.  The possibilities seem endless. 

When 2011 ended, to say that I was completely exhausted, burned out and drained of energy & passion would have been an understatement.  I felt very forgotten and frustrated.  Forgotten by God, frustrated with myself, circumstances and probably with God too.  Over the last few days it seems God has been meeting me where I am, showing me that we are never forgotten.  I read in a blog I follow about the Widow Woman and Elisha.  Then, I read my devotion for the day from Beth Moore's Praying the Word Day by Day and felt God speaking to me. 

Have you ever felt like you gave up everything for God and suffered because of it?  Maybe its just me and the Widow Woman mentioned in 2 Kings 4:1-7.  2 Kings 4 says "The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, 'Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the LORD. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.' 

Apparently, her husband, a man who served the Lord, died and she was about about to lose everything. She, like many of us, saw someone believe in HIM, and in the end, it seemed like it did them no good.  She felt that God had forgotten her. 

When Elisha asks her what she had, she replied, "Your servant has nothing there at all...except a small jar of olive oil.”

She felt she had nothing.  No way to make the money necessary to pay the creditors.  No way to bargain to keep her children from being sold into slavery.  Her nothing was something to God though. 

Elisha tells her, "Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”  I love how he told her "don't ask for a few."  My God is huge and my God is able. 

The Bible says 'she left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, 'Bring me another one.' But he replied, 'There is not a jar left.' Then the oil stopped flowing. She went and told the man of God, and he said, 'Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.'  God had not forgotten her and I doubt that He has forgotten about us either.  His plan is huge.  It is more than enough.  We just have to patient. 

Patience...which brings me to the next point.  I don't have very much of that.  Waiting is hard for most of us.  Patience to wait does not come from suffering long for what we lack, but from sitting long in what we have.  Ouch...I'm not anxious because I want to be in a different situation as much as I am anxious because I'm tired of where I've been.  Psalms 126:3, 5-6 says "The Lord will do great things for me, and I will be filled with joy. I will sow in tears, then I will reap with songs of joy. If I go out weeping, Lord, carrying seed to sow. I will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with me."

My prayer for 2012 is this:  Lord, please help me be willing to sow the seed of your Word and to water it with my tears, believing You in the midst of my circumstance.  If I do, You will be faithful to fill me with joy again. You will faithfully bring a harvest forth from my life. "You, the God of all grace, who called me to Your eternal glory in Christ, will restore me and make me strong, firm, and steadfast..." 1 Peter 5:10.

XOXO,
Amberly