In 2018, this weekly blog will enter its tenth year. The past decade has seen changes, upheavals, turmoil, and tragedies, as well as celebrations and blessings too numerous to count, both personally and worldwide. However, there has been one constant. Our eternal Creator God has not changed and my faith in His Word has grown stronger through it all.
This excerpt from a year-end post in 2009 still rings true in my life:
With Christmas over, we can begin to look forward to God’s gift of a brand-new year and many of us write lists of resolutions we hope will give us a fresh start.
This year, there was a book of quotations under my Christmas tree. One of the pithy phrases, in a chapter called “Words to Live By”, stood out as though printed in bold type. Th
is string of ten two-letter words stood out from the rest:
If it is to be, it is up to me.
As a Christian, I believe it is all up to God, yet I know He uses individuals to bring about His will and that when we are not attuned to His leading, or are unwilling to respond, we deny ourselves blessings. God’s will most definitely will be done, regardless of any human intervention, but He wants us to share in His perfect plan in order to experience every joy He has for us.
In that light, I see the above quotation as a reminder to be available, willing, and sensitive to God’s leading.
Has God given you a dream for His Kingdom? Perhaps He has inspired you to grow in some new direction of service in His name. God often speaks to His children in this way. If some idle notion comes into your head which would advance the Kingdom, it just may be God’s way of presenting you with an opportunity to share the joy. With this in mind, I am going to try to respond, when God uses my own observations, insights, and hopes to invite me into the work of the Kingdom, by reminding myself that if it (the dream) is to be (a reality), it is up to me (to respond to God’s leading).
(In 2018) I encourage you to pray as if everything depends upon God and work as if everything depends upon you.
This could be a very exciting year.
Power Walking with Jonna 
Wishing you and yours a joyful New Year, MaryAnn.
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I believe that Robert Schuller is responsible for that quote. I have always found it a powerful reminder of our relationship with God.
Wishing you a blessed 2018.
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