In His Likeness w/ AntTBri

To fully grasp and embrace the new, means we have to confront the contradiction of what “worked” for us before.  We have to admit that we are not all we should/could be, that there is still room for growth, improvement, and expansion. We are given another opportunity to start anew for a greater purpose that has not yet been realized and experienced.  Isn’t it amazing how invested God is in developing and growing us whole in Him.  He is detailed, intricately in tuned to every facet of our being and He ensures we grow in the manner of his design.  He does not allow us to continue to self destruct or self defeat beyond the parameters of his grace. Awh,yeah Jesus…gotta love him.   Isn’t it something how God yet does  the impossible?  How he creates, brings about, produces clear paths,  roadways in the wilderness and dessert seasons of life. He yet produces and provides streams, no rivers in wastelands.  When things are dry, barren, desolate HE  causes the sand storm to subside amidst the wind so we can see our way clear to his path.  He stays true to his nature, He nourishes and nurtures what needs to grow when what is dying begins to fall off. How perfect and infinite his wisdom is, how accurate his heart toward us, how completely loved we are [Smiles, blushing, and wanting to reciprocate his love with my life]. Don’t you want to embrace God’s New?

Embracing the new begins with learning, experiencing, and recognizing a new you in Him. Yes there is another, better version of you awaiting your surrender, beyond your present suffering, that has been purposed, sanctioned before time began. By becoming keenly aware that the you, you have been relied on your skills, strengths, and strategies to keep things together, make things happen, and keep things afloat you embrace all that will be in God’s new for you. Time served in our own strength grants us a confidence, a proficiency that causes us to forget, back shelve, and in most cases cross boundaries/barriers of control in terms of how we live and love.  Beginning again, embracing the new gives us the opportunity to relinquish and release that thought process and heart posture before the Lord.  Contrary to what we would like to think and feel in relation to ourselves, God’s new isn’t given to us because we deserve, merit, or even earned special recognition, blessing or favor.  God’s new is wrapped up in His purpose and plan.  It is His gift to  give, when and as He desires. We are recipients of the new not responsible for making, ensuring, and maintaining the new.  Behold, I [God] will do a new thing…it shall spring forth…Isa. 43:19.  Embracing the new creates dependency, that dependency interconnects us to the will of God for our lives.

We literally begin to disassemble our self effort and submit to Him who knows best and works everything after the counsel of His own will.  We conclude that unless He builds the house, the ministry, the family, the life…it’s for naught.  Wow! We have been endowed with the ability to literally abandoned, shut the door and bring to a close our plans, dreams, aspirations for the present[in our OWN thinking, striving, and doing] and utilize the power given to us appropriately to open up completely to what’s to come as intended, directed, and sanctioned by the heart and purpose of God for us. We really can trust God for our everything, for our very being, and our ultimate outcome.  We can embrace the new by AGREEing, ACCEPTing, and ACKNOWLEDGing that it is Him who works the will in us to do what is his good pleasure.  As we embrace the new that is breaking forth in our lives it is my prayer that we are able to perceive, identify, and know the movement, motion, and mannerisms of his grace towards us; that we put the emphasis on Him and not on who or what we’ve done or been to qualify or disqualify for these wonderful events that have never been before in our experience thus far. Let’s decide together  to go, and work with his flow even if it  is subsequently opposite of what we think and feel. May God grant us peace as we endeavor to take on a new mind set, adapt a new way of doing and being because it is our resolve that God is God of all our situations.  Embrace the new~AntTBri