Same Old Problem? A New Path Requires New Habits
I’ve had a nagging issue that I’ve been praying about for several years. I decided to review my journal entries from the past few years and scan them into one document so I could have the scattered prayers from that problem in one place. But when I went to save the fifty-six pages from the scanner app I’d used, the document disappeared. All the work of gathering individual pages was gone. I felt frustrated and defeated.
Then it dawned on me that if God was going to do something new, it was pointless to go back to the old way I’ve approached this problem.
Ask God To Give You His Vision for You
That fit perfectly with how I started 2017. Instead of a making a New Year’s resolution, I asked God to give me His vision for me for this year. I kept hearing the phrase “old things have passed away” in a favorite song, and in Bible verses that friends quoted.
I sensed God giving me a Bible verse for 2017:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
2 Corinthians 5:17
With this verse, He was telling me that His vision for me (and those around me) is NEW THINGS because the old things have passed away.
New Paths Require Forming New Habits
As I was reflecting on this, I flipped to one of my go-to devotionals, Word for Today by Bob Gass Ministries. I liked it so much that I copied it and pasted it into my journal.
Word For Today, 2/13/17, Bob Gass Ministries
With this devotional, I sensed the Holy Spirit teaching me how to move forward into the new things that are coming. Here are the notes I jotted down to myself as I reflected on this:
• When God calls you to something new, resist the temptation to fall back on the familiar. Don’t resort to old patterns so you can be comfortable. Instead, force yourself to push through previous habits and ask God to teach you how to navigate the new path he put You on.
• Co-labor with Jesus. Do not take one step forward without linking arms with Jesus and walking step by step with Him.
• Continually ask God to show you the new way to think about your old problem so you take a new path.
• Abandon your old ways and surrender to the new way with God.
After I wrote this, a friend posed this verse on Facebook:
Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
Isaiah 43:18-19
I was amazed that I’d never encountered this verse before and that it captured exactly what I’d been contemplating. That is so beautiful of God to give me a new verse for an old problem. So now I’m asking God to show me a new way to deal with my issue rather than going down the same unfruitful path of my past.
For Your Heart
• Do you have nagging problems that still are not resolved or old habits you need to break?
• Is God taking you into a new season?
• Do you wish He would so you can move on to something better?
Ask Him for a new perspective on your situation so your old things can pass away and new things can spring forth.
I’d love to hear what happens when you ask God for a fresh new perspective on your situation. Jot me a note below.
OTHER RESOURCES
You might also be interested in reading my blog post from 2/20/17 entitled, Need A Fresh Perspective on A Bleak Situation?
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