Hello people! Long time no see.
Regardless, happy 2024! I hope your year has gotten off to a great start. I wrote this post a couple years ago and still resonate with it deeply. I hope this can free some people. Enjoy!
As we have entered the month of January, this is usually the time when people start writing their list of goals for the new year. Or as others call them, their ‘resolutions’. I used to be one of those people too. Very religious about having a clear set of goals and a vision for the future. And there’s nothing wrong with that! Until you start letting those goals dictate how your year is going to go and leave no room for God to surprise you.
I’ve been vocal about my (former) struggle with depression and my list of goals was very instrumental in aiding that. I would hold this list up as a mirror for my life and if my life didn’t reflect that, I was a failure. I was so rigid about it that I couldn’t see any of the other blessings in my life. Nonetheless, I thought this list was a good thing, because you always hear people quote the scripture in Habakkuk 2, “write the vision and make it plain”. Society is also very gung-ho about writing things down if you want to accomplish anything, so every year on New Year’s Day, I’d write down this list and pray over it.
Now I still like to write lists and be organised, but it was only until I heard someone say that you can write a to-do list and still not be hard on yourself if you don’t get everything done, that I started to see them a little differently.
One new year, when I looked at my uncompleted list and it brought me immense sorrow, I just said “I’m not doing this shit any more.” Why do I keep doing things that bring me no pleasure AND no results? I stopped that day. For a few days after that I still felt uneasy, like my year would not go well, but I pushed through. This has been the case for about three years now and this last year has been one of the most prominent examples to show myself to let go. I had so many ups and downs this year but I tried my best to not be so rigid with my plans and just go with the flow when an opportunity arose, and I’ve literally had the best year of my life. None of the things that happened this year were planned. They were not written down. However, I’ve had amazing opportunities that I could not have even fathomed because I decided to go with the flow. This taught me an important lesson because it showed me that in the previous years I was not allowing God to blow my mind. I was making my own plans but I was not leaving room for any of the plans that He had in store. And as usual, He showed me that his plans were better than mine!
This is your sign to let go, and let God.