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So far, my grade for 2025 is Fail. Each year, I have areas where I get behind in parts of my life. In some areas, I feel more behind than others. But come January 1, I sit down and think through where I need to change and what needs to happen to make improvement, especially in the weak places of my life…and there are plenty! I like to think of it as a reboot. But it is more than that. I pray about what the changes will be so that I’m not burdened down with to-do lists that are longer than God wants them to be because my lists would be way too overwhelming. I’m not as naturally as easygoing and chill as some might think.

I have learned that too many goals for the New Year can be overwhelming and won’t develop into new good habits as I want, but rather, end in defeat as I work too hard for a few weeks and then give up, leaving nothing changed. In other words, it is better to develop one or two new habits slowly, than to set goals for 5 at once and end in defeat, finding I didn’t develop one new habit.

So how is 2025 going? Not well.

I spent most of January getting multiple viral infections. I would be sick (without a fever) for 3-4 days, then seem to get better for about a week, then get sick again, then repeat the same process. After the third time, I finally got a sinus infection, and was able to get an antibiotic and get rid of the mess. Of course, by then, it was February! I had no energy or stamina left and felt no gusto or motivation for any of my goals and had long since forgotten them all. I’m still out of energy and Ron isn’t doing great so is grabbing more of my attention for much of this month, I have been recovering stamina and helping him more than usual.

It is now the end of February and I haven’t made much progress

#I’m very disappointed. By this time I should have cleaned out closets and the remaining boxes in the back bedroom should be gone. But alas! All my mess is still there along with pieces of my quilt in process on the rug of one my rooms. I have been able to work on it a bit at a time. I am slowly progressing on my quilt that has a deadline. In fact, I’m about half done with the blocks and sent a photo of the finished blocks to my granddaughter and she loves it. So I’m happy with that. The best way to clear up my biggest mess is to finish the blocks and thus, complete my quilt, so I think I’ll stick with it.

Then, with March will come clearing out closets, getting tax info in order, and catching up on that Bible reading program I was starting. I will be able to tuck some of the other goals in the cracks too. The great goals I had, which didn’t seem that huge at the time, have not come near being accomplished. Do I struggle with feeling like a failure? Of course. I always struggle with those feelings.

What is God’s view of me?

Now is the time I have to draw on God’s view of me instead of my view of myself. I am a sinner saved by God’s grace. My tendency is to dwell on the sinner part because that is the part I’m most aware of. But God sees me through the eyes of Jesus who redeemed me. He made me a new creature in Christ. He sees my record as the record lived out by Jesus when He was on earth. It was 33 years of a perfect life. When Jesus died on the cross, He exchanged the perfect record of His life for my not perfect record. It was my crappy record He carried on Him when He died on the cross. Then, when the righteous anger of God the Father was carried out on Him that day and the curtain on the temple was torn, and the sky went dark, the consequences of my sin were paid for by Jesus. It was horrible. For the first time, Jesus was separated from the Father. But my sin was paid for by Jesus and satisfied the just anger of a holy God.

And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices,
which can never take away sins.
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins,
he sat down at the right hand of God,
waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.
For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

Hebrews 10:11-14 ESV

Now that I have trusted in the work Christ did on the cross as enough to pay for my sins, I am a member of God’s family. The ability to believe something so unbelievable can only come from God. It is too simple. Surely something that important needs to be more complicated. But it isn’t. Why do you think that is? Because the work all comes from God and not us. If any of the work is up to us, we get big-headed and braggy about all we have done to earn our way. Heaven would be a miserable place to be if we got there by working hard and earning it. People would spend eternity bragging about all the things they did to get there. Ugh! Who wants that? Our salvation is fully the work of God and it is a free gift from Him. All we can do is be thankful for the grace He has shown to us.

Ephesians talks about it here:
For by grace you have been saved through faith.
And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV

Now, as a new creation in Christ, I don’t have to see myself as a failure because I didn’t make the changes I planned on. For the decisions I made that were sinful, when I chose something to do instead of the better thing that I was wanting to grow into? I can repent of my sin and move on to make the right decision the next time. But when I got sick and didn’t have the energy to clean out a closet? I can trust God had something else in mind for me. Was it a time of rest? Was it a time to watch something on TV without guilt because that was all I had energy for at the time? Or did He want me making a different choice? Only God and I know.

I do know that God Is working to change me on His timing and in His way. He even uses illness to change me and make me more like Him. He uses times when my plans don’t work out to change me for His glory. It’s amazing! I’m not always thrilled to learn lessons that way, but it happens just the same.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,
not counting their trespasses against them,
and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

II Corinthians 5:17-19 ESV

What is God using in your life to bring change? How are you realizing who you are in Christ in the middle of failure or success?

Tell me in the comments below, what kinds of things God is using or has used, in your life, to bring change you need on HIs timing while helping you realize you are His special child and are not a failure, even if your plans aren’t working out. This verse was given to God’s people at the beginning of their 70 years in exile to Babylon. Very few of them would ever make it back. What a tender promise. I’m sure all they could think was how cruel and awful this punishment was. But God is telling them what His plans were for them and why it was happening.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord,
plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 ESV