My time away from the blog to seek God was wonderful, but\u00a0it was quickly\u00a0followed by massive \u201cspring\u201d cleaning in January, followed by a hysterectomy, followed by a season of forced relaxation and recuperation. It’s good to get back to writing!<\/p>\n
In the next few blogs, I will be sharing some things that have\u00a0come alive to me so far this year in my personal Bible reading.\u00a0 Later on, I plan to continue the series in 1 Peter. But first, I want to share something that God showed me in prayer just before Christmas. I believe it is a directive for the year ahead of us\u20142016.<\/p>\n
As I was praying with a small group of women three days before Christmas, I saw a darkened living room in the middle of the night, illumined only by a dying fire. I saw a wrapped present descend, gently landing at the base of an unlit Christmas tree. And I sensed God saying to my heart, \u201cI am distributing gifts of order to my people throughout the Church. It is theirs to unwrap, open and receive\u2014if they are willing.\u201d<\/p>\n
I knew that order would be custom-made, individually-crafted for each one of us, His children. And I also knew that each one of us was in desperate need for His order to arrive afresh in our lives. I called 2016 the Year of Order.<\/p>\n
As Christmas week rolled on, my pastor prepped the church for the year to come. One thing that stood out to me was his declaration that 2016 would be a Year of Light. I grasped that and mulled it over in prayer as the New Year dawned.<\/p>\n
2016, a year birthed in an era of chaos and darkness,\u00a0was to be filled with Light. And<\/em> Order.<\/p>\n How does order come if there is no light? Well, turn out your lights\u00a0and try to clean your house. It doesn\u2019t work so well, does it?<\/p>\n If we want to navigate effectively in a fallen world, we must embrace the Light of the gospel. The Light of the Word. The Light Himself, Jesus. We must be willing to let His light shine into our private lives, our relationships, our time usage, our thoughts, our words, our habits, our health\u2026.into everything<\/em>, whether it\u2019s comfortable to us or not.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s funny what Light does. It shows everything as it is, including the disorder<\/em> that all too often accompanies our lives. However, I believe that as you spend time basking in the Word and fellowshipping with the Light of the world Himself, you will not only see the disorder for what it is, but you will also receive light on how to bring it all back into order.<\/p>\n And even that which recently<\/em> has had the power to trip you up and defeat you time and again will be brought into wonderful order by the One whose Light will illumine your life.<\/p>\n This is your<\/em> year\u2014The Year of Light and Order.<\/p>\n Dorothy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My time away from the blog to seek God was wonderful, but\u00a0it was quickly\u00a0followed by massive \u201cspring\u201d cleaning in January, followed by a hysterectomy, followed by a season of forced relaxation and recuperation. It’s good to get back to writing! In the next few blogs, I will be sharing some things that have\u00a0come alive to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[527],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-light-and-order"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7432"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7434,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7432\/revisions\/7434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}