ARTICLES

New Beginnings

By Kimberly Lemler
 

A friend called me today to ask if I have made my New Year’s resolutions. I told her that I was just finishing my list and planning on displaying it in my office where I can see it everyday. It’s important for me to keep these things in front of my eyes so I don’t lose my vision of things yet to come.
 

There is a biblical principle involved with making plans for the future. A lot of people scoff at making lists for this purpose, and we all know that very few resolutions are kept as winter gives way to spring.  But the Bible tells us that we must plan for our future and we can do it in two ways…with our written proclamation and our verbal proclamation.

 

Written Proclamation
 

“Write the vision and make it plain on tablets,
That he may run who reads it.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time:
But at the end it will speak and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.” -Habakkuk 2:3
 

Thankfully in this day and age we do not have to chisel our vision out on stone tablets. But we can get out a pen and paper or use the computer to declare our vision in written words so that we can motivate ourselves, with God as our guide,  to run the race that it takes to see our vision to fruition.

Spoken Proclamation
 

“As it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations" in the presence of Him whom he believed-- God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did.”  -Romans 4:17
 

Your vision has not yet manifested so the Bible tells us that we are to call it completed, even though it has not yet begun. If your vision is to lose 20 pounds in the next 6 months you can declare on a daily basis in your devotional time, “I thank you Lord that I am at my ideal weight.” If you have debt that needs to be paid you can declare, “I thank you Lord that all of our debts are paid, in Jesus’s name!”  God has something to work with when he hears you decree the answers to the needs in your life. He can then begin to put the behind-the-scenes plans into motion.
 

Do It His Way

God’s ways are so much higher than ours. His wisdom is beyond our own and we are sensible to keep that in mind. If God says to write down our visions and to call those things that are not as though they were, then His infinite wisdom is all I need to kick my proclamations into gear. Our omniscient Father sees our future, when we cannot. 
 

Make a list today…write down what you expect to achieve in the coming year. Speak it as if it has already come to pass. Know that, with God, all things are possible to them that believe…
 

“We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak.” -2Corinthians 4:13
 

Copyright © 2006. Author Kimberly Lemler. All Rights Reserved.