Tomorrow is my birthday!  Woohoo!

Funny, even as I’m getting older, I really love celebrating my birthday.  It’s probably my sick and twisted love for celebrating all things ME!!!  HAHA!  I’m sure my family would agree with this statement whole-heartedly.

I have found that with each passing year, I continue to do the following:

• Learn new things.
• Change bad behaviors.
• Work on changing bad behaviors.
• Identify bad behaviors.
• Try to do more for others.
• Let go of resentments and bitterness.
• Enjoy more.
• Work harder.
• Do things that uplift others.
• Say no to frivolous requests.
• Become more solid in my self-confidence
• Grow in my relationship with God and Christ.

Obviously, I’ve got a TON of bad behaviors that need changing.  However, I have found it fascinating how much I can grow when I am open to letting go of my control and allowing God to make the necessary modifications.

It’s humbling, inspiring and overall essential to my inner joy and peace.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Psalm 51:10-12

I carry on as a work in progress.  I will never be perfect, but through Jesus Christ, I am saved because HE WAS PERFECT.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 1John 4:9-12

It’s hard to realize that there is absolutely nothing I can do to deserve eternal life with God.  It’s even more depressing to figure out that I will never deserve it.  Sigh.

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. 2 Corinthians 13:5-7

The good news remains to be that God’s love is why we all can have the hope of a forever relationship with Him.  Choosing to follow His ways and obey His commands isn’t a hardship when we understand that we are keeping ourselves safer by staying under God’s protection than when we go at it alone.

There is still so much I have to learn and understand.  But, I feel fortunate to have a God who loves me enough to discipline me, teach me and most of all…love me.

I can only pray that this next year will strengthen my relationship with God and Christ and that I will allow them to use me as they see fit.  The hardest part is staying out of their way!!!

Some Wisdom for Today:  Proverbs 14:12 – There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.