Are You Ready for 2010

We wish you a very happy New Year from the entire Fraticelli family and Women of Destiny Life Group

(Prov 15:33 MSG) Fear-of-GOD is a school in skilled living—first you learn humility, then you experience glory.

This is the last message I will send out this week and this year. Entering into a new year is always a special time for me and I try to make it a special time for my husband and my close friends. We take the time to reflect back over the past year and to pray for vision for the next. I often talk about God’s desired end for our lives, or put another way, fulfilling our life’s purpose.

When the Father begins to reveal things to us about our future it gives us vision (which is more insight than it is sight). Once we are equipped with Godly vision we have a ruler by which we can judge every decision. This is very important, because in many respects, our life is a grand-sum-total of our decisions. We are where we are today because of the decisions we made in the past and we will be wherever we end up tomorrow because of the decisions we make today.

Paul said, “Everything is permissible for me–but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me–but I will not be mastered by anything” (1st Cor 6:12 NIV). Another translation of that same verse reads: “Just because something is technically legal doesn't mean that it's spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I'd be a slave to my whims.”

Vision gives us the foundation for disciplined decisions. The quality of our decisions is often contingent upon the quality of our information. Once God reveals His plan for our lives, we can make quality decisions that will direct us towards our destiny.

With that in mind, please take a few moments to ask yourself some soul-searching and course-checking questions. As you close out 2009, ask yourself:

• Am I making progress?
• Did I accomplish in 2009 what I set out to?
• Where am I in my overall life’s plan and more importantly, God’s plan for my life?
• Am I prepared for 2010?
• Do I have a plan to make time to receive and lay out the plan?
• Am I leading my family the way that I should?

I know we are all busy, but I pray that you take the time to slow down long enough to consider some of these questions with yourself and God. If you are not careful you can rush your way through days, weeks, months, and even years without ever slowing down long enough to take self-inventory.

The transition into a new year affords us an opportunity to look back, in order that we might look forward. The last verse that we will read in 2009, from this current series, is very appropriate. In this verse Solomon tells that the fear of the Lord actually enables us to live a skilled life, and that is what we are looking for. We want to skillfully maneuver our way through life’s challenges.

Solomon also tells us that the first thing we will learn with God is humility – as He consistently reminds us that we cannot do it all ourselves – and after we are reverent and humble, He allows us to experience His glory. It’s awesome to me that the last words from the last scripture that I share in this series for the year are “experience glory”. I am now ready for 2010 and I pray you are as well.

Father, I look back to look forward. I thank You for everything I experienced in 2009: victories, failures, and all. I slow down over the upcoming days and weeks long enough to hear from You for vision for 2010. I know that I will not arrive at my overall destination in 2010, but I also know that there are things that You desire for me to accomplish that will take me incrementally closer to Your expected end for my life. As You reveal to me the things You desire for me to do in 2010, I declare, by faith, that I will lay them out as goals, establish plans for bring them to pass, and then put the appropriate action behind the plans to bring them to completion. As I do, I will be that much closer to becoming the person that You desire for me to be and to my overall destiny. I skillfully maneuver my way through 2010 and beyond and I do it all BY FAITH! In Jesus’ name. Amen!