Posts on the Path

I’m a girl who loves a good New Year’s resolution. Why, I don’t know exactly, because I almost never keep them. I guess they let me feel like I have a chance to start over and do all the things I WISH I would do every day, but never do. *sigh*

Last year I decided I would skip the resolutions and instead jump on the “one word” band wagon, where you choose one word to focus on and center life around for the year. (hahaha - laughing because last year I said I hate New Year's resolutions. :) Apparently I can't make up my mind.)

Well.

After praying and thinking and praying and pondering....I never really came up with a word. Oh, I had a couple that swam around in my head for a while, but nothing ever really stuck. So in the end I wound up with no resolutions (which I probably wouldn’t have kept anyway) and no word. Boo.

So now I’m back at it again. At least I can say I keep trying, huh? :)

But this year, the word (or words, as the case may be) sort of found me. Remember, oh, about 3-ish years ago or so when I started seeing and hearing the phrase “Do Something” everywhere I turned? DoSomethingDoSomethingDoSomething. (Anyone besides me old enough to remember the old Mervyn’s Black Friday commercials where the lady was standing with her face and hands pressed up against the window at Mervyn’s going, “Open. Open. Open.”? I digress.)  It's sorta been like that again.

For the past few months, my constant heart’s cry to God has been, “I want to be different!” I want my home to be different (better organized, filled with peace, a sanctuary for my family); I want my family to be different (more focused on loving God and His Word, more focused on giving and serving others); I want my marriage to be different (nuff said); I want my SELF to be different – oh, let me count the ways. I just want to BE DIFFERENT.

Finally, one day a couple of weeks ago, it dawned on me that I had been repeating this mantra to God over and over for weeks, “I want THIS to be different and I want THAT to be different and I want THIS OTHER THING to be different….I just want to BE DIFFERENT!” And – dingdingding! – there’s my word (phrase) for the year.

BE DIFFERENT.

Now, there’s being discontent, and then there’s being discontent. I don’t think this is the bad kind of being discontent. Paul said, “I have learned in all things to BE CONTENT…”, but I don’t think that means being stagnant. Sometimes (a lot of times) we need to change. And sometimes (a lot of times) we (I) need a kick in the pants to get us moving. I think this discontentment I’ve been having is the kind I need to spur me on to make some changes.

And here’s the thing. I’ve wanted to make most of these changes – be different in these ways – for a long time. But just like my New Year’s resolutions, they never “took”. Either I never did anything about them in the first place, or if I did try, I never stuck with it.

I'm not saying that this is going to be the year when I will somehow magically be able to keep a resolution to Be Different. *grin* What I am saying, is that this is my prayer. It’s been my prayer for weeks, and now it will be my prayer throughout the year.

I want to be different.

What does that mean exactly? Not sure. But here’s what I do know.

• I want to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

• I want to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength and love my neighbor as myself.

• I want to “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” Isaiah 1:17.

• I want to do a better job of teaching my children to love God…to KNOW Him, not just ABOUT Him. To talk about Him when we sit at home and when we walk along the road, when we lie down and when we get up. To tie His word on our hands and bind them on our foreheads. To write them on the doorframes of our house and on our gates (and on the tablets of our hearts). Deut. 6:7-9

• I want to “Do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk,” and to “spend [myself] in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,” so that “[my] light will rise in the darkness, and [my] night will become like the noonday.” Then "the LORD will guide [us] always; He will satisfy [our] needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen [our] frame. [We] will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail."  Is. 58:9b-11

• I want to GO and SERVE and GIVE and teach my children to do the same.

• I want our family to love God, serve Him with all our hearts, and bring honor to Him in all we do.

Last year I loved loved loved this post by Missy over at It’s Almost Naptime. She reposted it this week, and I loved it even more.

And since reading it again, I’ve expanded my prayer to Be Different with this prayer: “God, I want to do something this year that will make people think I’m crazy!”

I can't wait to see what God has in store.  Let the craziness begin!