2018 Word of the Year

Sensitive. My word for the year is sensitive.

Picture yourself as a guy and your wife comes to you and says that she wants her word for the year to be sensitive …

You’d probably be like “Nah uh … we’re good.”

I’m pretty sure that’s what Josh thought too. Then I sat down and explained to him what this really meant and that the next year would be more than just lots of tears :)

As I worked through my powersheets, I had a 3 words written down. Obedience, Expand, and Sensitive.

Obedience, I saw as God calling me to obey Him in a bigger, bolder way. To be honest, although I was leaning toward it, this was pretty scary word to consider.

Expand to me was a pretty fun one. Like God was going to expand my business, expand my reach, expand my purpose, expand my influence, expand my story, etc. I literally couldn’t think of anything bad that could come from this word.

Then it came to me. Sensitive. God was calling me to be sensitive to what He was doing, what He was speaking, and to the path He was calling me down.

This past year and especially the last 6 months, I have heard from the Lord more and more. From big things like business decisions (including the time He told me to double my order for the Devoted Life journals) to seemingly smaller things like Him pointing out the one person He wanted me to pay attention to and invest in.

Being sensitive to the Holy Spirit and giving the Lord space to speak to me has been one of the most exciting experiences. To hear Him, obey Him, see the fruit of obedience and be confidant that I am walking in step with Him is like no other high you can experience!

With this excitement burning in my heart, I really felt like I wanted to continue to cultivate this attitude of listening and expecting God to speak! And that when He does speak I want to obey, knowing that with continued obedience, He will continue to speak and move in my life. I want to spend this year building habits and a foundation, so I can spend a lifetime going through the cycle of listening, obeying, and seeing the fruit.

My focus will the to …

  • Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s Voice
  • Be sensitive to people
  • Be sensitive to situations & my surroundings
  • Be sensitive to the eternal realm

As I continue to dig deeper into cultivating an eternal perspective, I am often reminded that there is so much going on that is not obviously visible to us. With the distractions and busy-ness of our daily lives we can TOTALLY miss out on the beauty that God has for us in each moment, if we are not intentional to see it. So we need to be intentional about seeing the things unseen :)

A little side note : If you hear people say stuff like “God told me to do this…” or “The Holy Spirit spoke to be about that…” and have never experienced that, I don’t want you to be discouraged. There was a time when I would hear people say the same thing and I would want that. Or sometimes I would discount it because deep down I didn’t understand why He spoke to them and not me, and it was just easier to think they were exaggerating. But the truth is that you too can hear from the Lord!

I shared these tips a while back for learning to be in closer communion and honestly just in regular conversation (we both talk & we both listen) with the Lord. The more I do this, the more I develop hears that hear and eyes that see.

1. Ask For It
Tell the Lord you are listening. Ask Him to speak. Express your desire to hear Him and be in close communion with Him. Picture yourself as the chatty friend who talks non-stop, then wonders why your friend never shares anything with you! He’s not going to scream or interrupt (well maybe He will, but don’t think it’s His norm). God’s desire is for you to WANT to hear from Him and to be active in seeking it out.

2. Give Him Space to Speak.
Back to the chatty friend… Let’s say you do ask your friend a question, but interrupt them before they can even answer! We need to give others the space, quiet, and time to get it out! We can’t just ask and then move on with our day assuming He will shout over all the noise. This past week what He’s told me is to make space for Him, be still, meditate, meet with Him. Literally EVERY single day this week, something I read has given me this same word! Allow some margin in your day to hear Him speak.

3. Commit to obey His word.
Talk to Him or journal and let Him know that you trust Him and His plans, and that you will obey whatever He gives you. Admittedly, this can be a really tough thing to say. If you aren’t quite ready to say that, then tell Him thats what your desire is, but you will need His strength. Just be honest! He already knows anyway. But know this… the more we obey and get to see the fruit of obedience to Him, the easier it gets to trust Him and commit to obey next time! Give Him the opportunity to prove He is trustworthy!

4. Open your Bible.
Most of the time when I hear from the Lord it is through reading Scripture. Just thinking about the past week and the confirmation of His words it came from …

  • A devotional I grabbed while soaking in the tub (Streams in the Desert!).
  • My quiet time reading from Ezekiel.
  • Our sermon. But the truth is the section that spoke to me was a passage just below what He was teaching on! If I hadn’t had my Bible with me then I might never have seen it.
  • Only once did the word come from a social media post I came across! Don’t think that following inspirational accounts is all you need! If I hadn’t already had my heart open to this Sabbath idea, that post would have felt like the same ole, same ole.

5. Obey Him!
It’s not enough to just say you will obey… you will need to actually obey! I think of this like the verse that talks about being faithful in the small things. When we prove ourselves faithful in the small things, He will continue to speak. Otherwise we harden our heart to Him and His voice becomes dull.


2018 Goal Series

2017 Goal Recap
Learning Steadiness : My Habit Personality & the Tools I use to Track & Plan
2018 Word of the Year
2018 Goals
Booklist

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