Okay. We’ve finished the first week (Days 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) of 2022. What did you do with them? Would you wish to recall them and try again? As if it were doable. Are your resolutions in File 13 (Trash Can)? Did you even get started?
Okay. It’s never too late to pick up the pieces and try, try again.
Before you throw in the towel or cry u-n-c-l-e, why not take a crucial First Step and determine if you were your own worst enemy. Did you plan for failure? Or fail to plan? Kick-starting a New Year requires a plan, focus, intentional steps, and tracking success while noting the failures.
For Me, the Last Week of 2021 and the First Week of 2022 flowed like this:
We’ve had a wild bit of weather these past two weeks. Snow, Ice, and Cold. Rain, Wind, and Floods. The passes have closed multiple times for multiple days. My emergency weather email system shares warnings up to 10 times per day!
We’ve hidden from the public due to the Pandemic. Fear sets us up for failure and no success.
Add on this Omicron, and we feel like it’s piling up! Piling On! Weighing us down.
And now…I-5 is closed due to flooding in Lewis County!
If this were an end-of-the-world novel or movie in the making, we would now face a tornado, hurricane, volcano, earthquake, tsunami, and who knows what else!
Life is Wild right now!
Let’s Not Let It Get Us Down!
The first week of #TwentyTwentyTwo did not go according to any plan I may have established. Chewy gave us eight puppies, and they are barely a week old. We canceled the Christmas service due to bad weather. Fortunately, no power outages – just a couple of flickers. Snow piled, temperatures dropped, then another front brought warmer weather and rain. Weather challenges are typical in my neck of the woods.
Let’s not let it get us down!
We cannot undo the weather challenges and only prepare for them better the next time. That’s how we should treat our failure to improve the same way. Life happens; we can improve the next time we attempt to change.
If you cannot undo it, then focus on making your footprint in life better!
It’s Time To Recreate
The longer you stay away from something or someone, the harder it is to reconnect. You cannot “just go back” to the way things or people were. Life Changes Everything! Except for God’s Word! If it’s been a while, reconnect. He’s still there!#TwentyTwentyTwo #LessonsLearned
So, it’s time to recreate your habit and habitat for growth!
Exercise, better diet, reconnection, dig in, and learning – these are all things we focus on at the start of a new season. Eventually, we improve with them or decide they are not worth the time.
It may be possible you must recreate every day! What worked yesterday may not work today—life changes. Habitats change. We feel we must reintroduce ourselves to the new game of life every single day.
Immediately, someone cries out, NO! They want life to be the same today as it was yesterday. Really? Yesterday was not my best day, so let’s focus on making this day better!
Give Me The Truth, I Can Take It
We are challenged every single day!
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed;
we are perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken;
struck down, but not destroyed—
always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus,
that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
2 Corinthians 4:7-10 NKJV
Your first week may not have been the best, and you may see the words Paul speaks of, but look at his phrase, “…but not…” It may not have been easy, but you do not have to accept it!
Jeremiah, the Weeping Prophet, presents words of hope.
My soul still remembers And sinks within me.
This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope.
Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”
Lamentations 3:20-24 NKJV
I am praying for you as you review the week over your shoulder. You can have Hope in Him, even when the weight pulls you down into the mulligrubs. Don’t accept last week’s failures. Make the next week better!