Hi friends. This is Erin Michele. Welcome to steps to trusting. It is my goal here to meet you where you are in your faith journey and encourage you to continue to take steps to trusting the Lord more fully.

[00:00:18]   Hi friends. I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and happy new year.   

[00:00:25] I’ve done this thing for the last several years, I started picking a word of the year.  I don’t even know where I heard the idea, but as I started hearing it, it seems like it popped up everywhere  as the new fad thing to do. But for me, it’s not just been a fad. For me,  it is a focus. It’s almost the lesson that I need to learn that year.

[00:00:48] The lesson that I’m starting to feel the Lord impressing on my heart that I’m seeing glimpses of, but I still need to understand more. I’ve done this for the last several years.

[00:00:58] I’ve had words like purpose, surrender and invited. Each year I look back, I can see how God has been working. Each of those in my life. This past year has been the year of invited. You know, I picked that word way before COVID happened.

[00:01:16] The Lord has taught me this year to see the things around me that are happening as an invitation. Sometimes challenges are an invitation. And this year had lots of challenges. I think we all have. We’ve seen and we’ve mourned so many things.  As I said, I have tried to see these things as an invitation. An invitation, I think first to set my eyes on the Lord.

[00:01:40]  When we see the hardship, we see the thing that we might be giving up. It’s an invitation to something else. Don’t get me wrong, the “be stuck at home order” and changes that  isolation and quarantine have brought to my family has been a big challenge.  I’ve had days where I’ve cried more than others. But I think on the days that I could see it as an invitation to something else, those are the days that I thrived.

[00:02:07] I wanted to close this year with a bit of a recap. A recap of what  I have been invited to – a recap of what you are invited to. Your invitations will look different from mine, but I encourage you to look  at the things around you that you might be invited to, that you didn’t even notice.

[00:02:27]Being stuck at home, all of a sudden we couldn’t go anywhere. I was invited to more time with my children. I was invited to walks with my husband each day. I was invited to school lunches in the middle of the day and work breaks. I was invited to slow down. I was invited to put aside the busy-ness.

[00:02:47]What are you being invited to?

[00:02:49]  2019 for me was the year of surrender. It was real  helpful for me to focus on surrendering. I focused on  the feelings that I was having and how I needed to lay them down before the Lord. I focused on desires that I had, that didn’t seem to be coming and surrendering them to the Lord’s will.  I learned a lot about who the Lord is. I picked that year surrender, but the word I actually spent most of the year contemplating and meditating on was the fact that the Lord is my defender.

[00:03:24] I can surrender to the Lord, but I can choose to surrender to him because I know the character of who he is. I know that he’s the one that will defend me.  I can run to him and seek his protection. Instead of be fighting against him in my life. So that’s what I learned in the year surrender. 

[00:03:46] So when I came to invited. It was almost as a shift  following out of surrender. I’m invited to surrender.   I’m invited to stand with the Lord. I’m invited to participate in his work and participate in what’s he’s doing. But sometimes in my lack of obedience or my weakness and my sinfulness, I stand as someone who opposes the Lord, who chooses not to go where I’m invited, who chooses not to surrender, who chooses to not actually see that the Lord is not against me.

[00:04:24]The Lord is not against us.  

[00:04:25]And so when a year of challenges, when we look at all these hard things happening to be focusing already on the fact that we are invited changed my perspective. Whereas I think it would be easy to see or to think that the Lord is against us in what he’s doing, but no, he’s not, he’s not against us. We’re invited to see him.

[00:04:49]And so actually sometimes  we could become so blindsided by all the things of life; we could be come so entangled in the busy-ness of life that we stopped seeing the blessings of the Lord. When something happens that causes us to question. Wow, was that action of the Lord good? Is he good? Is he doing something good right now?

[00:05:14] Guys, we don’t have to be afraid of these questions. We don’t have to fear, but instead we sat our eyes to seek God, to seek who is this one that I have all these questions about?

[00:05:27]Questions are actually an invitation to turn our eyes and to see who is this God? Who is the one that we question, are you taking away something good? Instead of looking at, he has given us this good thing for so long and have I chosen to praise him? So 2020 invited me to choose to praise the Lord. To choose, to set my eyes on the Lord who is good.

[00:05:53]To choose to set my eyes on the one who has always provided the rain and who has always provided the sun who has allowed me to have food in my belly,  who has given me breath in my lungs and health, in my home.

[00:06:08]Hardship and disease and sickness it’s almost as if it’s an emptiness from where the blessing once was. 

[00:06:16]It’s almost as if not seeing the blessing  that has always been, there is in fact the invitation.

[00:06:23]So, so many people are so ready to step out of 2020 to start a new year to step into something new. But I encourage you that as you go to step out of this year, will you first look at what does 2020 invite you to?

[00:06:40]What have you allowed 2020 to invite you to?

[00:06:44]Have you allowed it to challenge your faith? Have you allowed it  to have you question who God is?  Have you allowed it to invite you to remember the blessings that you have had every day. The invitation, to thank him for his goodness to praise him for his mercy and his compassion.

[00:07:04]friends. I know that many people fear when they’re faced with questions about God. I know I feared where these types of questions would take me, but  what if having these questions about God, about faith and about life. 

[00:07:18]What if these questions were an invitation to find out more?

[00:07:22]If you are feeling all the questions as this year closes. And you want to seek where those questions will take you, but don’t have a place to process or discuss. I would like to offer you another invitation. That invitation is to a place called Alpha. 

[00:07:40]Right now, Alpha is being offered as an online course .  It’s a safe place to explore and discuss these types of questions. There’s no cost and no judgment. 

[00:07:54]I’m putting a link in my show notes. And if you’re wondering if that link is for you, then yes, it is . I wish I could look you in the eyes and personally invite you to come to Alpha, but if you come there will be someone to personally, look you in the eyes and welcome you.

[00:08:12]They will welcome your presence. They will welcome your questions and opinions, and they will walk with you through this time of exploration.

[00:08:22] Dear God, I pray that as we close out 2020, and then we step into another year, Lord God, that you would let our hearts see the invitation that hardship brings. Lord, you call us and blessings and you call us in hardship. Lord, you will use all things to invite us to you. Lord God, your word invites us to you. Your creation invites us to you. The sunrise invites us to you. Lord God, give us eyes to see and ears to hear your invitation, Lord Jesus. And it is in Jesus name that I pray. Amen. 

[00:09:01]Friends, thank you for taking the time to spend with me as we close out our year.  Happy new year. There will still be journaling questions in the show notes. I hope that those are helpful for you to process through what this year may be inviting you to.  I hope those questions help you process through, but if those questions lead you to more questions, then yes, again, the reminder is Alpha is a place for you. At least go and read the description about what the class is about. 

[00:09:37]You are welcome to come exactly. As you are. I hope to see you there at Alpha.  And I hope to see you back here next time till then I wanted to leave you with this reminder from Ephesians two 10, “for we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”

[00:10:01] Friends. I am praying for you as you keep on stepping.