The verse came before the word, honestly, I had a list of about ten words (I so thought I was going to have to have a pick three words year because I couldn't narrow to just one).....then God spoke in with the word align. I had added a declaration with alignment to my morning time with God over the past week and God was working that word into my Spirit. With as rough as 2020 was, I can honestly look back over it and see lessons from the stormy moments. I've walked into 2021 with an expectation that the cloud that formed in 2020 contains a rain of promise. (There is a new song from Restoring Hope Worship that speaks on this very thing. It's a song I've had on repeat all weekend...). It was confirmation of a word God had given me over this past year. That's a blog for another day...
I ended the year with several blogs in draft status. It wasn't that God was writing, but it was harder to press through at times and much easier to just watch a Hallmark movie for my time. Y'all there is nothing wrong with binge-watching shows at times (I have done my share of it this break), but in the still small whispers right after Christmas God kept whispering. Honestly, it made me hungrier to know the rest of the story. You see God had been giving me a word here and there all month, but I hadn't pressed into seeing how it all connected together. I thank Him for the rest that I needed and didn't realize it. What seeds were planted in 2020 that you need God to water so they can grow in 2021? Hear my heart.....maybe your year was painful from start to finish, I get it....but I also know that the tears you shed, the moments you spent pressing into His presence, the praise you gave when you didn't feel like it....can all be seeds in the hands of the Creator. I see a ground tilled up, and a ripe harvest is soon to come to pass...
So on to my word of the year...I first thought it was going to be the focus, but something about that didn't sit with me well. I didn't feel like that was what He was speaking in, so I kept listening.....and then align was yelled out in my Spirit one day so loud that I knew it was Him. I then had it confirmed more than once. When things are aligned there is a flow that happens. I can tell in my physical body when I need to visit the chiropractor for an alignment, but do we pay attention to when we need a spiritual alignment? I have a morning declaration time when I take communion and my meds, and a couple of weeks ago I felt God adding to it "My body will come to alignment with the One that created it". Ya'll sometimes we take multiple things for something and never speak life to it....and yeah that's a blog for another day.
If my thoughts are aligned with His, my words will align with His, and my actions will follow...
It's more than just seeking Him first, it's seeking Him and letting Him speak the truth and promise to not only where you are at, but where you are going. When we align with Him, obedience just happens. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's worth it. "Even when I don't see it He's working, Even when I don't feel it, He's working".
Not focusing on what I can see, but focusing on what He sees....and aligning with the truths and promises in His word.
More to come this year, I promise...one thing I learned in 2020 was that I needed to share more of Him. I found the switch for the voice God knew I had all along last year, plus there is still a book that's waiting to be written ;-)
