Best Year Yet

This is the best year yet! was a popular post on Facebook and Twitter for the first ten minutes of 2010. Why? Because nothing bad had happened yet. Can we only have a "good year" (or month or week or day) if it's trouble-free? Is our vision so handicapped that we correlate "the best" with a lack of problems or struggles? How spoiled are we?!

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory. We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. – Romans 5:1-5

The Holy Spirit gives us everything we need. You have access to God’s love, courage, strength, joy, discernment (and the list goes on…) inside you, accessible at all times. So why do you think we still want to sit beside the road, bury our head in our hands and quit when we encounter struggles? Perhaps...

...Even when we know God provides all we need through him, we try to rely on our own strength and courage instead of tapping into his.
...We wait to tap into his strength and courage only when we’re completely exhausted. We try to hand him the baton, expecting him to run the rest of the way for us, not with us.
...We rely on the Holy Spirit to guide, equip, and encourage us so infrequently that we’re not sure how to listen and rely on him.

...We’re human. I don’t want this to become a crutch we rely on, but we have to admit, we’re going to struggle with our past baggage, current struggles, and future apprehensions. The key is whether we try to manage it all or rely on God to equip us to persevere and endure.

When we have problems and trials, we can develop endurance. (We can also sit and mope and whine and become self-focused.) Endurance develops character. Character develops our hope in salvation. And yet it's our hope in salvation, our relationship with Jesus, our acceptance and understanding of God’s character, that helps us deal with our problems and trials in the first place.

You'll have problems and trials this year, my friend. I guarantee it. Be determined in how you'll respond. It could be the best year yet!