The Word

"Also the Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man that He should change His mind.” 1 Samuel 15:29

Welcome to 2019!  It’s time for the annual word of the year post. I just learned that there is some sort of app that can generate your word for you.  The folks I know who have tried it have gotten some pretty fancy words.  One lady got the word “dazzle” and another got “fascination” and yet a third got “excitement”.  After many weeks of prayer, my word is crystal clear…and once again it’s not very fancy.  I say it’s not fancy because it involves work on my part.  My word for 2019 is “CONSISTENT”.  Wa-hoo!  At first I pouted a little thinking this was a word that meant I was going to be tested and asked to actually plow through some stuff he’s been leading me toward for a while.  After the word was clear, I spent several days asking him to help me actually like my word!

It’s been cause for a lot of reflection and it’s only the second day of January!  In my prayer, I came across this verse from 1Samuel and it shined a giant spotlight on a couple of things that come with my word.  I was pointed right to truthfulness and decisiveness.  Truth hit my heart because we live in a world that seems to be a little allergic to honesty.  It’s hard to know which headline or sound bite to believe.  I know I can't do much to change that but I sure can work consistently to seek, defend, and live truth.  Changing my mind is usually what happens when I loose steam and don’t finish what I started.  It occurred to me that if consistent was a word I lived, I could be a little more Christ-like.  I liked the thought of that!

I’m celebrating the last few hours of my birthday as I type and it’s been a great day.  I think it’s been a great day because it had the best beginning.  I went to church for a Eucharistic Holy Hour at 5:45 this morning and in the still and the quiet the thought that popped into my head (thank you Holy Spirit) was that being consistent didn’t mean being perfect.  That was a huge relief. The verse points out that He is not a man and he won’t change his mind but I am human so he sort of expects it I think…phew!  That little line took off some of the pressure for sure! As I begin this new year and pray about the way I’d like to live out this next birth year, I made a list of all the places I needed to be more consistent.  When I finished, the list wasn’t nearly as scary as I thought it might be. I am the queen of stop and start…green light and red light…hurry up, go crazy and then stall out!  I believe the words I need to adopt are finish what you start with consistent progress.  I think I can do that!

As I was looking at the list of things that need my new word and making a plan, I realized I probably need to find the root of my inconsistency.  I’m usually in perpetual motion and get lots of stuff done but there are those few things that just never turn out quite like I thought they would when I got started.  I need to spend some time in prayer thinking about why!  Some of them are big things like writing a book and others are small like praying a daily Rosary EVERY day. Some are just yucky like keeping papers graded and my desk free from piles and some are hard like consistently eating right and speaking truthfully and kindly to everyone.  My new word seems to fit everywhere but I need to figure out how to use it well.  I’ll keep you posted!

A Seed To Plant:  What’s your word?  Share it if you have one so we can all pray for each other as we figure out how to live our word!

Blessings on your day!