Presence

Happy New Year!!!

I gotta say, I am not really excited about 2024. Anyone else feeling more dread than enthusiasm? Like 2020 isn’t going to have anything on 2024?

Regardlesss, here we are at the start of a new year and its hard not to feel some excitement…New expectations. New hopes. New plans.

The possibilities are endless, right? Right!

But what does God want from you this year? What does He want for you? What has He prompted you to do that you just haven’t done yet? What is He waiting for you to say yes to?

Those are the questions I’ve been asking myself here lately, but truthfully, I’ve been feeling stumped.

Bringing in the New Year last night with friends and several talked about their word for 2024.

God put ‘expectant’ on my heart last January and I had no clue why, but He knew. He knew much more than I did that things were at hand and I needed to be expectant, looking forward to something.

But as of last night, God hadn’t given me a word for 2024 and I was kind of hoping He would. I wanted God’s word for me, not one I came up with on my own.

Truth is though, I’ve been disconnected from God through these holidays and I’ve been bummed about it. And the confusing thing is is that I know exactly what to do about it but don’t.

Anyone relate?

It’s silly, but yet, there it is.

It’s hard to hear from God when you’re not spending time with Him and I was kind of mourning that when I woke up. I felt rudderless and not sure what to do with my day.

So I stopped and I asked God. Flat out.

And did He answer?

Of course He did…

“Presence Cathleen. I want you to work on being present this year. Present with me and present with your family. Make spending time with me a priority and then demonstrate it to your kids. It’s that important. Quiet the distractions and just be with me. Then just be with them.”

It’s nothing mind-blowing, in fact, it’s downright the simplest and most straightforward thing, but for me, it’s also what I struggle with the most. Last year was about looking for Him and this year is about getting to know Him. Or at least that’s what came to mind when I heard ‘Presence’.

So may my new year and yours be less about the things we want to do or accomplish, the new routines we want to set or budgets we want to stick to. May it be less about the miles run, books read, or goals met and more about quieting down and slowing down and sitting in His presence.

Sounds great, but don’t get me wrong, my mind goes straight to meal planning for January, schedules for the kids, a schedule for cleaning the house, etc. but I feel like God is saying all of that is going to work itself out. “Let it go and come be with me and we’ll do it together. It will be much better that way anyway.”

Whew. Maybe 2024 won’t be so bad after all. At least if I’m sitting in the presence of God, my focus will be on what matters most in this world and not on all the craziness of this world.

And that sounds like a pretty good way to spend 2024.