a new year: shifting the spotlight

being a very goal-oriented person makes starting a new year very tricky. I tend to have high expectations for things and it can be hard to keep my heart focused when I am staring into a year of seemingly endless possibilities. I can be so quick to say things like “this is going to be a great year for me!” or “this year has so many exciting things for me!”… The common factor in all of these statements that I am so quick to make is ME. the year quickly becomes about ME and all the things I get to experience and accomplish. This transition into 2021 started off no different than all of my New Years in the past.

I was talking to my best friends about 2021 and how excited I was for a year that held so many milestones for me. This year I will graduate high school, turn 18, and leave for The World Race. While all of these things are exciting, my friends were quick to remind me that these things are FROM the Lord and FOR the Lord. As soon as the big things of the year becomes all about ME, all the little things follow right after and it becomes not a year of accomplishment and excitement, but a year of selfishness. 

As hard as it can be to hear sometimes, I am so grateful for constant reminders that being a Christian is a yes to permanently taking the spotlight off of myself and placing it on the only one who truly deserves it. Our lives can so quickly lose their purpose when we are living for ourselves, and we will never find the fullness of joy and abundant life that was promised.

Making 2021 ”my year” will not make me any happier or more fulfilled, in fact, it will bring the opposite. In James 3 it says that selfish ambition brings “many troubles and every kind of meanness”. The only way that I can make 2021 my best year is by waking up every morning and choosing to take the spotlight off of me. choosing to be misunderstood for the case of Christ. choosing to love tough people when no one else will. choosing to use every single minute that I have breath in my lungs to ONLY glorify the one who put it there in the first place.

So now, on January 3rd, 2021 I am making that my mission for this year, next year, and all the years after that because true fullness comes through active humilty. It comes from choosing to take up my cross and follow Him through the accomplishments, losses, excitement, heartache, and everything in between. Join me in making this year the HUMBLEST one yet & let’s go chase Him and love people!!!

His love + mine,

bree