5 Ways to Live Out God's Special Promise for the New Year

I don't typically do this, but the other night I opened my Psalter and began reading right where the page fell.  I found myself in Psalm 65.  As I read through the verses, I was amazed at the timing of my "random" reading.  For there it was in plain sight, a special promise from God for the New Year...

You have crowned the year with Your bounty {goodness}, 

and Your paths drip with fatness.  

Psalm 65:11.

BibleStudyTools.com shared the following exposition of this promise...

"Thou crownest the year with thy goodness. The harvest is the plainest display of the divine bounty, and the crown of the year. The Lord himself conducts the coronation, and sets the golden coronal upon the brow of the year. Or we may understand the expression to mean that God's love encircles the year as with a crown; each month has its gems, each day its pearl. Unceasing kindness girdles all time with a belt of love. The providence of God in its visitations makes a complete circuit, and surrounds the year."

What a beautiful word picture!  The King of Kings conducting a coronation, setting a golden coronal upon the brow of OUR year to ensure that His love encircles the year in its entirety - every month, with His special gifts and blessings.

As Christians, every one of God's promises are a reality, but often times we don't "live them out".  Instead we stifle ALL that God intended for us through His promises by worrying or unbelief.

I'm sure you've heard it said of someone, "Wow!  They are truly living out their dreams!"  In essence, the dreamer made their dreams a reality by living them out.

I believe there are 5 ways to live out God's Special Promise for the New Year.  To experience each day as God intended it to be, a precious gem with His presence and provision.

Live Out God's Special Promise for the New Year by       Intentionally Looking for His Awesome Deeds

Sadly, it only seems to be during certain times of deep reflection that I will ponder or even notice God's awesome deeds.  Being so caught up in my daily activities, which include worrying, worthless distractions and my own selfish desires, there is very little room to focus on the goodness of God.  The very goodness that He has promised to crown every day of the year with!

If you're like me, when you even see the phrase "awesome deeds", your mind drifts back to the Old and New Testaments where indeed there were great and many "awesome deeds" that were unprecedented and spiritually supernatural.

The awesomeness of God does not just occur in the grand schisms of the earth, such as the parting of the red sea, but God's awesome deeds can also occur in gentle ways...

The quieting of a heart that was formerly like a sea tossed tempest, filled with all manner of anxiety and distress, which now suddenly finds itself calm and peaceful resting in the God of ALL Comfort...

The conception of a baby deep within its mothers womb...

The rising of the sun and its setting.

The ebb and flow of the tide.

The gentle breezes

We did not physically see the catalyst for all of of these events, but we know that it was God who set all of these things in motion.

When we intentionally look for God every day of the year, we will find His awesome deeds and experience His goodness.

By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,

O God of our salvation,

You who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest sea.

Who establishes the mountains by His strength

Being girded with might;

Who stills the roaring of the seas;

The roaring of their waves,

And the tumult of the peoples.

They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs;

You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.

Psalm 65:5-8

The New Year WILL prove God's promise of bounty and goodness through His awesome deeds which are EVERYWHERE.  

   Live Out God's Special Promise for the New Year by     Trusting God and Recounting His Faithfulness

We are a fickle people for sure.  The Israelites showcased our sad state by constantly doubting God, EVEN WHEN HE WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM in the pillar of cloud by day and the fire by night.  Yet don't WE often see God right in front of us, yet still doubt?

I'm trying to use Jesus' example more and more by preaching Truth to myself.  Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Light.  When He was in the desert for 40 days being tempted by Satan, He retorted those temptations with the Truth of God's Word.

Jesus is the Word that became flesh.  He embodies the whole Canon of Scripture. That alone should be incentive enough to BELIEVE all that the Bible states and all of God's promises, yet if we are being honest with ourselves, we don't always believe God's Word and find ourselves doubting its power in our own lives.

One of the best ways I have found to bolster my trust is to recount God's faithfulness.

From the rising of the sun to its setting 

The name of the LORD is to be praised.

Psalm 113:3

When we end out each day of the year by recounting God's faithfulness for that day, we will see His promises fulfilled, His goodness displayed and our trust will grow in the One who IS ABSOLUTELY trustworthy.

The New Year WILL prove God's promise of bounty and goodness through His faithfulness and trustworthiness.

    Live Out God's Special Promise for the New Year by      Praying Big

I've shared this before, but I am really good at praying big for others and not praying big for myself because I  have decided that God doesn't want me to have that which I would like to pray for...

My husband shared a story in his sermon yesterday about a Pastor whose church was failing financially and was on the brink of closing.  He prayed that the Lord would provide.  A man showed up at the church and handed the Pastor a blank check and told him to write in the amount the church needed.  The man said he would be back in an hour to sign the check.  The Pastor thought to himself, surely this man doesn't have the full amount of money that we would need, I will just write half of the amount on the check.  The man came back and signed the check, not really even taking time to look at the amount he was signing for.  The Pastor later found out that this person was a philanthropist and could have EASILY paid for all that the church needed.  The Pastor lamented realizing that he had prayed that God would provide, God did provide for the FULL amount, but the Pastor only asked for half...

How often do we shortchange not only ourselves, but God, in essence, by not praying big.  Our God wants us to pray big.  For it is through our big prayers that He shows Himself even bigger!

God promises that He has crowned our new year with bounty.  A bounty of blessings that are not constrained to just material things, but sooo much more!  Just think about it, the Lord has ordained our New Year to be able to experience ALL the blessings that He has planned for us.  Shouldn't we then partake of that bounty through believing prayer?

You give to them, they gather it up;

You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good.

Psalm 104:28

You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.

Psalm 145:16

The New Year WILL prove God's promise of bounty and goodness through answers to BIG prayers.

   Live Out God's Special Promise for the New Year by     Drinking Up the Living Water

Every New Year brings with it the promise of new spiritual growth.  We are God's people and as such, we have works that were set aside for us to do before the worlds began.

The Lord is very patient and has ordained every part of our spiritual journey, one year at a time...

In order to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus we must spend much time drinking up the Living Water, the Words of God, through meditation and time in the Word.

Not that the Lord holds back ANYTHING, but if I were to pick what He gives in overwhelming abundance, I would have to say it is spiritual blessings.

God's Word is so very rich with everything that is needed for life and living.  The Living Word connects us to Jesus in such an intimate way.  It is our lifeline.  Not spending time drinking up the Living Water will show its self in dehydration - easily falling prey to temptation, discontentment, selfishness, disobedience, just to name a few...

If we are to experience the bounty and goodness of God, we must make it our mission to spend every day of the New Year studying and meditating upon the Word of God.

The more we drink up the living water, the more fruit we will show forth for the Kingdom and the    more joy we will experience.

You visit the earth and water it;

you greatly enrich it;

the river of God is full of water;

your provide their grain,

for so you have prepared it.

You water its furrows abundantly,

settling its ridges,

softening it with showers,

and blessing its growth.

Psalm 65:9-10

The New Year WILL prove God's promise of bounty and goodness through the Living Water of His Word.

      Live Out God's Special Promise for the New Year by         Being Patient in Affliction

As I typed out this heading I thought to myself, "oh boy Karen, you don't have experience in this area AT ALL". 

I was particularly discontent and downright angry closing out 2019...  Affliction comes in many forms, not just physical, and I camped out on bitterness rather than patience...  

As I was researching for this blog post, I came upon a very interesting commentary from BibleStudyTools.com regarding the verse from Psalm 65 that prompted this post.  It's definitely food for thought...

Thou crownest the year with thy goodness. Dr. William Whewell, in his Bridgewater Treatise, notes the evidence of design in the length of the year, and although it may not perhaps be considered to be a direct comment on the text, I beg to quote it here, as it may awaken a train of thought, and make more conspicuous the goodness of God, in the revolution of the seasons. "If any change in the length of the year were to take place, the working of the botanical world would be thrown into utter disorder, the functions of plants would be entirely deranged, and the whole vegetable kingdom involved in instant decay and rapid extinction." That this would be the case, may be collected from innumerable indications. Most of our fruit trees, for example, require the year to be of its present length. If the summer and the autumn were much shorter, the fruit could not ripen; if these seasons were much longer, the tree would put forth a fresh suit of blossoms, to be cut down by the winter. Or, if the year were twice its present length, a second crop of fruit would probably not be matured, for want, among other things, of an intermediate season of rest and consolidation, such as the winter is. Our forest trees, in like manner, appear to need all the seasons of our present year for their perfection; the spring, summer, and autumn, for the development of their leaves and consequent formation of their proper juice, and of wood from this; and the winter for the hardening and solidifying the substance thus formed... The processes of the rising of the sap, of the formation of proper juices, of the unfolding of leaves, the opening of flowers, the fecundation of the fruit, the ripening of the seed, its proper deposition in order for the reproduction of a new plant; all these operations require a certain portion of time, and could not be compressed into a space less than a year, or at least could not be abbreviated in any very great degree. And, on the other hand, if the winter were greatly longer than it now is, many seeds would not germinate at the return of spring. Seeds which have been kept too long, require stimulants to make them fertile. If, therefore, the duration of the seasons were much to change the processes of vegetable life would be interrupted, deranged, distempered. What, for instance, would become of our calender of Flora, if the year were lengthened or shortened by six months? Some of the dates would never arrive in the one case, and the vegetable processes which mark them would be superseded; some seasons would be without dates in the other case, and these periods would be employed in a way hurtful to the plants, and no doubt speedily destructive. We should have, not only a year of confusion, but if it were repeated and continued, a year of death... The same kind of argument might be applied to the animal creation. The pairings, nesting, hatching, fledgling, and flight of birds, for instance, occupy each its peculiar time of the year; and, together with a proper period of rest, fill up the twelve months; the transformations of most insects have similar reference to the seasons, their progress and duration. `In every species' (except man's), says a writer (Flemming) on animals, `there is a particular period of the year in which the reproductive system exercises its energies. And the season of love and the period of gestation are so arranged that the young ones are produced at the time wherein the conditions of temperature are most suited to the commencement of life.' It is not our business here to consider the details of such provisions, beautiful and striking as they are. But the prevalence of the great law of periodicity in the vital functions of organised beings will be allowed to have a claim to be considered in its reference to astronomy, when it is seen that their periodical constitution derives its use from the periodical nature of the motions of the planets round the sun; and that the duration of such cycles in the existence of plants and animals has a reference to the arbitrary elements of the solar system, a reference which we maintain is inexplicable and unintelligible, except by admitting into our conceptions an intelligent Author, alike of the organic and inorganic universe.

As I pondered this further, I realized that in the same way as the animal and plant kingdoms, we need certain lengths of seasons in our lives that are uniquely and specifically ordained by God for our pruning to initiate further growth as we serve Him this side of Heaven.  

When we look at hard seasons, however long God ordains, with the mindset that there is a perfect order to EVERYTHING, than we can be patient in affliction because we know that the Lord has a perfect, loving purpose which in the end WILL bless us.

The New Year will prove God's promise of bounty and goodness through patience in affliction.

For further insights on each of the ways to live out God's Special Promise for the New Year, please click on the following posts:

Believing the Unseen

Living Life IN God's Faithfulness

God's Faithfulness Shines Brightest in the Darkest Hours

Four Powerful Attitudes in Prayer that Yield Results

Drink Up!

A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven

4 Bold Prayers of the Bible Every Christian Should Pray

May we all experience God's Special Promise for the New Year by living out these 5 Ways to experience His bounty and goodness.

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