I’m not a new-year’s-resolutions kinda girl. I’ve never really been into it because I felt like my list of resolutions were empty and vague. Two years ago my mentor and incredible friend Katie told me about an alternative that has been my new favorite new year’s tradition. It’s called My One Word. Instead of writing a lost list of goals you hope to accomplish during the New Year, you pick one word out of a list of words that you think is going to be incorporated into your life during the New Year. This is the list that I have used to choose my one word the past two years:
Faithful Grateful Move
Consistent Fearless Grace
Change Enough Abide
Love Restore Hope
Gratitude Believe Patience
Faith Persevere Pray
Purpose Peace Renew
Truth Focus Release
Confidence Healthy Growth
Strength Balance Diligent
Courage Surrender Listen
Present Trust Joy
Disciplined Brave Discipline
Simplify Obedience Intentional
Freedom Happy Less
Last year my one word was change and oh man…was that spot on. Last year I graduated high school, got my own car, turned 18 and started going to college. It was amazing to look back and read all my journals and see how God was totally working in my life and how change was a big part of the seasons I was in.
This year on January 1st I looked over the list of words again and I really felt like my one word for 2015 was supposed to be grace. I was really excited when I chose it as my word because I really felt God was going to do big things. But what I didn’t anticipate was that Jesus was going to absolutely wreck my heart that day. As soon as the New Year started I was hit by a tidal wave of God’s grace. Holy Spirit was highlighting Scriptures, pointing out quotes on social media and singing songs of grace over me in the secret place. Days kept passing by and I was loving every moment. Every day it felt like a new layer was added onto my perspective of grace. I was experiencing it, reading about it, singing about it, and praying about it. But I lacked one thing: I wasn’t living in it.
A few days ago I watched a video called “Jesus Is Loving Barabbas” with Judah Smith speaking in it and it changed me. It taught me something:
Believing in grace and living in grace are two different things.
I realized that I was so excited about learning about grace but never really chose to live in it. God would open my eyes to a new layer of grace and I would get excited but left it at that. I didn’t allow my beliefs to turn into my actions. Yeah, I knew what grace was by definition. But honestly, sometimes you don’t really know what something is until you live in it.
I wasn’t living in grace. I was simply choosing to journal about my beliefs without ever giving thought to actually, whole-heartedly, recklessly believing those beliefs to be true. Defining what your beliefs are and choosing to believe what you say you believe in are two different things.
We live our lives bent underneath the heavy weight of sin and lustful passions. For years we toil and fall down to the demands of addiction and pain. We hear the sharp whispers of the enemy and magnify them to be true. We allow our time to be spent wasting away in a mess of sin that we claim belongs to us. And then we come to the cross—we find ourselves at the intersection of hopelessness and light. Just when we thought rock-bottom couldn’t get any deeper, we come face to face with the One who has been fighting for us the whole time.
Brokenness is messy and exposing, but it’s where we meet grace face to face.
From now on, I’m choosing to be intentional about really believing what God says. I don’t want to dance around the ideas of grace, freedom, joy and love. I want to live in grace, freedom, joy and love. I want my life to be genuine, not perfect. I want to experience the attributes of my Father in ways that overwhelm me. Even though the world tells me differently, I am convinced that I will see Heaven come in my own life and in those around me.
P.S.
Here’s the video I talked about.
Compass and Keys 
SOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!
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