“Where have you come from, and where are you going?” (Genesis 16:8)
The last days of the year are a good time for reflection and making resolutions. Have you ever had a year that was so bad you could not live with the idea of another year of the same? Are you there now? If you are, you could be ready to hear the question that God likes to ask from time to time:
“Where have you come from, and where are you going?”
This is the consummate question of direction. It implies if we do not have a crisis that changes things, we are going to end up with more of the same.
Sometimes we are what needs to change. Jeremiah actually mocks us for trying to change ourselves: “Why do you gad about so much to change your ways? …Can the Ethiopian change the color of his skin or the leopard its spots?” (Jeremiah 2:36)
There is a big difference between trying to change ourselves and being changed by God. Unless we are changed by God and God changes what only God can change, we are trapped in a cycle of going where we have come from.
With great spiritual discernment David asked God to create in him a new heart. God answered that prayer for him. (Psalm 51:10) God can also do that for us today. We are not doomed to that cycle of going where we have come from. We can be changed. God can change the things that must change in us so next year we will not end up back where we have come from.
Confess that you can’t change yourself or your circumstances, but believe God can as you enter the New Year… then watch at God work.
Dick Woodward, 30 December 2011
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