Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. COMMENTARY PEARL Today is the perfect time to look ahead and think about what I want to accomplish in the upcoming year: new goals and dreams, healthier habits, new activities. I pull the old calendar that's full off the wall to make room for the new empty calendar. Today is also a good time to clear space in my heart and mind to make room for the new ways God wants to work in my life. First, I take inventory of what I might need to let go. Do I need to kick my habit of worry to make room for more prayer time with Jesus? Am I completely ready to release my regret over past mistakes to clear space for the joy of abiding in His love and forgiveness? Can I replace the fears that hold me back with greater courage and boldness in serving Him? No matter how insignificant I feel, Jesus has plans for my new year. Big plans. Maybe not big in the world's eyes, like winning a lottery. Rather His plans - serving Jesus in new ways, understanding His Word more deeply, knowing Jesus more intimately - are big because they have eternal value. As I celebrate the eve of a new year, I trust in His exciting hope-filled plans for me. Dianne Neal Matthews Faith Step: Today ask Jesus to help you make two lists: "Out with the Old" and "In with the New." On your new calendar, jot down a word or phrase for each month related to something Jesus wants to build in your life. [Mornings With Jesus 2022 Devotional by Guideposts and Zondervan] ILLUSTRATION I was seventeen the first time I visited New York City, hitchhiking one summer from Michigan with a schoolmate after promising our parents we'd take a bus. My first impression was mixed. I was overwhelmed - not unpleasantly so - by the sheer intensity of New York, its relentless energy and teeming humanity, its crowds and traffic. My friend had lived in Manhattan previously, and he took me on the roaring subway speeding under neighborhood after neighborhood, to Central Park and Morningside Heights, to St. Patrick's Cathedral. He introduced me to Patience and Fortitude, the proud stone lions who guard the entrance to the New York Public Library, a veritable cathedral in its own right. My neck was cricked from gazing up at the soaring glass and steel office towers lining Third Avenue. It was like walking onto a movie set, a great, sweeping Hollywood epic about a living, breathing metropolis. The undisputed center of the world. Maybe this is why there was a nagging unreality about New York to my young, suburbanite eyes. Where were the two-car garages? The rolling lawns? The Weber grills? The backyard swing sets? That night, trying to fall asleep amid the cacophony of bleating taxis twenty floors below, I asked, How can people actually live here? Fifteen years after that first visit I found myself working in one of those skyscrapers on Third Avenue writing for a magazine I'd barely heard of called Guideposts and living in Manhattan. I've lived here ever since, way longer than I have lived anywhere else. New York is not just where I live, it is home, both to my family and my work. God has a way of showing you where He wants you to be. I never dreamed at seventeen that my future was being revealed to me. God, thank You for planting us where we are meant to grow. Edward Grinnan [Walking in Grace 2021 Devotional by Guideposts and Zondervan] LINKS FOR FURTHER STUDY Jeremiah 29:11 - God's Plans For Us Are Good; Giving Us Hope And A Future: http://www.abible.com/devotions/2020/20200716-0903.html http://www.abible.com/devotions/2013/20131104-1716.html http://www.abible.com/devotions/2008/20081020-1229.html YOUR COMMENTS If anyone has a paraphrase, commentary or testimony on this passage of Scripture, either personal or otherwise, I would be interested in hearing from you. Thanks in advance and let's keep uplifting Jesus that all might be drawn to Him. Fred Gibbs LINKS WORTH CHECKING OUT https://abible.com/links/