May you know God more this New Year by Julie Short

A New Year. Ugh, another year to struggle and hurt. Another year without Kyra.

I don’t make New Years resolutions. I just try to be farther along my walk with God than I was the year before. Last New Years it was close. I struggled the whole year and then at the end of the year I took a leap. This year I feel like I journeyed far until around October and then I sat down and cried.

As this New Year approached I felt led to read Ephesians again. I read the first two chapters. This time as I read I saw something that I hadn’t really grasped before. Paul wrote such beautiful, passionate, encouraging words to others. He wanted them to know God more. Paul was in prison. I don’t know about you but if I were in prison I would be writing asking people to pray for me. But instead Paul said, “Wow! You are growing in your faith. Keep growing in the Lord. In fact, I am praying for you that you may know God more.”

There comes a time in grief where you need to re-invest in life. No one can tell another person when that time has come. But, hopefully we will listen to God and hear Him calling us on. My hope for this year is that I will spend more time praying for you to know God more, than I do praying for myself.

What a way to start a new year. Paul is a perfect example, as he sat in prison he prayed that others would know God more. What is your prayer for the New Year?

Read Ephesians 1:1-23 (Below are verses 11-19)
11In him we were also chosen,[e] having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.
15For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit[f] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe.