Word Reflection

On January 1st 2016 I posted about picking a word, or two, something you wanted to work on throughout the year. I picked two.

The first was confidence. I talked in my post about how in 2015 I grew up a lot and gained a lot of confidence. I also talked about how I was learning to judge myself from God's perspective, not people's and that people's opinion of me needed to be my second priority, and God's opinion should be my first.
So how am I doing?

Well friends, I can't lie, it's still hard. I haven't always led a conventional life, I'm not extremely successful in the world's eyes and I certainly have not and am not following a "typical" path but I know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that right now, I'm exactly where God wants me to be. But that said I know not everyone understands my decisions, so when I see the questioning, sometimes even concerned or worse, condescending, looks wondering when I'm going to "get my act together" or "grow up" it hurts. I want to make people happy but I can't, my focus has to be on pleasing the Lord, not people, not even the people I love.

So all in all I would say I have gained confidence. I've gotten better at learning to accept that I can't make everyone happy, that not everyone will understand my decisions but that pleasing God and following is path for my life is the most important thing. Well, at least most days I've gotten better at it.

My second word was prayer. My goal wasn't just to get better at talking to Him, and giving him my burdens but also to focus on listening to Him.
 How'd I do?

Well, it hasn't been easy. Some days I do better then others. Some days I resist even thinking about listening to Him. Some days I hear very clearly what He's saying and choose not to listen. (I don't recommend doing this, it leads to way too many sleepless nights!) But it's a process and I am asking Him to help me continue to work on it.
I'm not sure I'll ever perfect my prayer life this side of heaven. But it's not about perfection, it's about improvement. So have I improved? Hmm... I don't know, but it's got me thinking about it which is a good start.