Approaching 2020 with the right heart.

As I was following the trail during a much-awaited time off me and my husband were blessed to share this week, I found myself continually crying out to God for insight. The mountainous views were beautiful but as I was physically climbing, I inwardly longed for God to help me make more progress spiritually this year. A new year is a chance to make the necessary changes in our lives and if you’re like me, there are many things you want to do differently this time around. Sometimes we feel stuck in our walk with God, but I want to encourage you that there is a way to move forward through any obstacle. I am so overjoyed to tell you that God spoke to me a word that couldn’t have been more timely. The next morning after I cried out to God He said, “break up the fallow ground.” It came out of nowhere while I was preparing for another day away from my usual routine, and I just knew it was God. I wasn’t really sure what it meant at first but as I searched deeper, I found that the word fallow means uncultivated, bare, and even neglected. I knew it had to do with the soil of the heart and that I needed to approach God with the right attitude. Hosea 10:12 (ESV) says, Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you. God was calling me to seek Him not just in principle, but to prepare the soil of my heart practically. It starts from what we sow inside ourselves- our thoughts, our attitudes, and our actions. We often think that it is God’s job alone to rain righteousness upon us but He calls us to sow it first. The more I pondered this truth, I realised that He was calling me to pull out the weeds from the areas of my life that I had neglected. At first it was daunting, but God has a way of meeting us halfway. As we set our hearts to honour Him down to the core of our being, we will start to see our compromise in a whole new light. We won’t rest until we uproot any works of the flesh and work the soil thoroughly so it is ready to be sown. In Jeremiah 4:3, we find this phrase again, For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.” What are the thorns that choke the Truth in your life? Is it pride, jealousy, selfish ambition? Whatever it is, the Holy Spirit is capable of handling but we must be willing to change. We are privileged to turn the page on a new year of our lives, may we make the best of it!