Best Year Ever!

When I typed the title of this blog entry it made me somewhat uncomfortable in that I feared that maybe it would come across as boasting during a time of struggle for many. When I sit in my Wednesday evening men’s group and we are asked for our prayer and praise requests, I will volunteer a prayer request before I will a praise. Folks are hurting in their pocketbooks, in their marriages and in their physical health so I tell myself that it would be rude to publicly praise God for all my blessings. However, I’ve come to realize that it is Satan that wants to prevent me from sharing this fact with more than just my family or friends because it would glorify God in a very public way. But it is only because of God that 2011 was my best year ever and I won’t allow Satan to stand in my way as I do my part to give credit to the Giver of all good things for the blessings that HE has bestowed on me.

I need to provide a little background to my story in order to set the foundation for what occurred in 2011. Late in 2010, my wife and I made the decision to place God at the head of our family and step back into our proper (secondary) roles. I was saved and became a Christian in 2009 and my wife was saved as a young girl (I’m not sayin’ she’s old now; don’t misunderstand!) but to be honest there was not much fruit to bear witness to our faith. So we set out a few goals that we intended to accomplish and that would serve as our guide during the New Year.

First and foremost, we decided that we would make a conscious decision to trust God with our lives and attempt to stop trying to control things and make them work out to our earthly liking. Secondly, I wanted to make a public profession of faith in our local church, be baptized (at age 45!) and formally join our church and Sunday school class. I also made a commitment to more fully participate in a men’s group that I was attending in our church. Lastly, we decided to contribute our time and resources to the church in a way that we previously had not. (David Platt’s book, Radical, was an inspiration in this area.)

Well, I did publicly proclaim my faith and was baptized. We did join our church and Sunday school class. I threw myself into the Men’s Adventure meetings that I began attending in 2010 and we volunteered our time and other resources to ministries and missions affiliated with our church. And through it all we credited God’s grace for our actions. We told God in late 2010 that we were going to honor him with our actions and behaviors and trust HIM to manage the messiness that was a significant part of our lives. As a result, God blessed our marriage (it’s always been good but it became great in 2011), God blessed our finances through the actions of a close family member (you know who you are!!) and God rained down peace in our lives that was previously missing.

Toward the end of 2011, I found myself slipping back into the control freak that is a large part of my nature (sin nature??) but as soon as I threw my hands in the air and confessed to God that I was powerless to control that which I was trying to control, HE reached down in a supernatural way and made happen what I had tried to make happen but had failed to do. Only when I surrendered my will to HIS will did things work out. And they worked out better than I could have imagined.

God doesn’t always work things out according to our earthly wishes or plans and I wonder if I’ll praise God as much as I have if HE decides in HIS sovereignty to take it all away from me. I pray that I would praise HIM through the power of the Holy Spirit, but that would be a test that I hope I never have to take. I also learned that even though it’s easy to praise God in good times Satan will trick you into believing that you shouldn’t. I pray that you read this post as a glorification of God and are blessed and given hope by it rather than feel anger or resentment as a result of reading it. I know that either way, God will use it for HIS glory and Satan will taste the bitterness of defeat. All praise, honor, and glory to God most high! And may God Bless you in 2012 as you trust in HIM!

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