“2018 was designed to show you who everybody is. God has to reveal character, motive, intent, heartposture, plans, schemes and plots. He had to show you people; even people that you thought were for you. He had to show you that they weren’t for you… God had to expose that.”

– John Gray

 

It seems to me, based on talking to friends both near and far, that

2018 was pretty challenging to many of us. Whether the challenge

was personal, financial or political, friendships were tested,

finances were stretched and the politics around the globe proved

to be a constant reminder of the trials that seemed to engulf us.

Many of those things with which we were forced to deal came

from long-term, what we believed were, tried and tested

institutions. The friendships on which you once relied reached a

breaking point. The job or jobs you thought were secure suddenly

let you go. The political landscape, which was, for much of your

life, operating from a place of generally understood rules, now

seems to be operating from the Upside Down from Stranger

Things. There has been, what I believe to be, a divinely designed

revelation of and a cutting away from the people and things,

which were spiritual barriers to our growth. Had they stayed in

your life, the light that is currently pulling you towards something

greater, no matter how murky it may appear, would be obscured

and eclipsed by the darkness of the very things from which you’ve

been set free.

 

In order to have room for something new to come into our lives,

we have to get rid of the old. The heavens want to give you a new

car and you’re still driving the old car even though you’ve prayed

for a new one. We tend to sit and complain about the things in

our lives, knowing full well that we want something better and

that we’re worthy of something better but, rather than throwing

those things overboard, we hold on to them for far too long and

then wonder why we start sinking from the very weight they’re

adding to our journey.

 

The reality is that, as we are in the last days of 2018, the new

places that await our arrival are not reachable unless we jettison

all of the things that have been weighing us down. To reach the

new place, we must be nimble and our load must be light. It’s not

just new levels that we’re going to, “it’s a completely different

atmosphere” as pastor John Gray says. 2018 was the lightening of

our collective load and a preparation for our fast approaching new

atmosphere.

 

Anytime one has to throw something overboard the load contains

items that once had value, which is why they were brought on the

journey in the first place – they were important to us but their

added weight will potentially kill us if we hold onto them. These

things too must be tossed. And in our tossing, beware not to

waste time by lingering on the ‘good ole days.’ Time is of the

essence and the new destination awaits us. If we have the desire

to reach it, we must also have the courage to endure the weight

of the lost items as we, even if begrudgingly, throw them

overboard to liberate us towards our future.

 

As painful as it was and, for many of us, still is, we needed to be

cut away from those things to be birthed into the New. There is

no birth or transformation without discomfort, pain and pressure.

Whether it be changing from a caterpillar to a butterfly, birthing a

new child into your life or starting a business from the ground up

– they all come with discomfort, pain and pressure. 2018 was no

different. And, for as much as it hurt, there is value in it. There will

emerge, in 2019, a lightness in your spirit, a transfusion of

inspiration, a spiritual, physical and creative energy and clarity that

you may have never experienced.

 

I believe that we’ll all look back and, in spite of the pain and

disappointments of 2018, thank God for having cleared our paths

of all of the people, places and things which were blocking the

light of our true transformation. My prayer is that you reach a

point of peace about all of it and exhale all of the toxic exhaust of

2018 and inhale the fresh, healing breeze of 2019. May God bless

your journey!