Can you believe that this is the last day of January? Yes. The first month of the new year is ending. It has flown by. Gone with it are the euphoric feelings of the new year. Perhaps, the memories of your resolutions and/or commitments are fading. This is the time when you’re in danger of getting back on last year’s treadmill. Indeed, it’s a good time to take spiritual stock. But, how to do this? Here are three questions to examine to help you take spiritual stock.
Take Spiritual Stock: Where is God?
That’s the question, isn’t it? As you go through your daily activities, where is God? Are you starting the day with God? Are you keeping God in focus during the day, communicating with God and doing as God desires? Is God your last thought at the end of the day? As someone put it long ago:
God be in my head, and in my understanding;
God be in mine eyes, and in my looking;
God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;
God be in my heart, and in my thinking;
God be at mine end, and at my departing.
Take spiritual stock—where is God in your life?
How are you nurturing your relationship with God?
The nurture question is an important one. You see, for God to be in all of you and all around you as well as your beginning and end, you need to be nurturing your relationship with God. See 3 Simple Ways to Grow Your Relationship with God for more on this. Here’s the thing. Your relationship with God isn’t going to grow by wishing it to do so. This is not to say that you don’t want it to grow. However, you have to take steps for this to happen. You have to nurture this relationship.
But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. (Jude 20–21).
As you take spiritual stock, do you need to shift some things around so that God is the beginning, end, and everything in between? Do you need to shift some things around in your life so that you have the space to nurture your relationship with God?
How does your relationship send you out with confidence in God and self?
This is the difference question. What evidence is there in your life that you are growing in God? Growing in the life of faith leads to greater trust in God which leads you to live with greater confidence. Gone are the fears of other people and insecurities securities because your confidence now rests in God, God’s love, and all that God has done and is doing in you. You live before the cross in the light of God’s forgiveness and grace. You know that God in God’s love will always hold you in this life and the life to come. That’s some confidence.
Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be content with what you have; for he has said, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” So we can say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper;
I will not be afraid.
What can anyone do to me” (Hebrews 13:5–6)?
Yes. The first month of the new year has ended. Take spiritual stock and let this be a year of a growing relationship with God in which God is everything and you go out with confidence in God and self.
Get closer to God and gain a deeper understanding of who God is.
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