January 2025 Revealing Light Newsletter

In the past few months, I’ve continued to read the reminders that your windshield is larger than your rearview mirror for a reason. It’s good to be able to look behind you and see what’s there, but it’s even more important to see what is currently in front of you and where you are headed.

One of my friends from college, Grant Roth, reflected on this and wrote:
“Checking the rearview mirror is important, but if we’re only focused on what’s behind us, we’ll miss what’s going on right in front of us.
We face that same danger as we reflect on our past. It’s possible to get so caught up with the sins or the successes of our past that we miss what God is doing in the present. When we reflect on our past, it’s not to relive our wins or reopen our wounds, it’s to remember God’s power and presence. Reflecting on our past is valuable because it can give us the encouragement needed to press on and keep moving forward in our relationship with God.” [Grant Roth, The Penny Toss: Diving Deeper in Your Relationship with God and Experiencing the Reward]

It’s this beautiful reminder to reflect back on what God has done in the past to help us trust Him as we continue to yield and partner with what God is doing and going to do ahead. We get that opportunity as we bookend the year of 2024, reflecting on what took place in that timestamp as we look to partnering with what God is going to be doing in 2025. He continues to love us, shape us, and grant us the grace of life today as disciples of Jesus to shine His light in the communities we are part of. I’m not sure what this year entails, and neither do you; but I do know who has continued to be my firm foundation in past years, and am thankful to continue to have God as my firm foundation for years to come.

I hope as you look ahead on Route 2025, you may be able to yield to God’s good and perfect plan, partnering with Him as He continues to guide and shape us.

Proverbs 19:21
"Many plans are in a person’s heart, but the advice of the Lord will stand."


Lord, may your Kingdom come and your will be done on earth just as your Kingdom and will is in heaven.

- Daryl Struemph

Commitment is the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc.  It can also be described as an engagement or obligation that restricts freedom of action.  Let me give an example.  If I said I was training to run a marathon, I would restrict what I ate.  I would also start building lung capacity by running, doing calisthenics, etc.   So when I say I want to be a Christian (follower of Christ), I also need to determine my level of commitment.  Does it mean my level of commitment is going to church on Sundays?  Or is it more intense; I’m going to read and study His Word, spend time in prayer, give generously, spend time with His people and love them the way He does.

Acts 21:10-13 gives some insight so that I can learn what my real commitment level should be.  “As we were staying in Caesarea for some days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.  And coming to us, he took Paul’s belt and bound his own feet and hands, and said, This is what the Holy Spirit says ‘In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.’ When we had heard this , we as well as the local residents began begging Paul not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered “I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”  That shouts something about Paul’s commitment level, doesn’t it?  He wasn’t just going through the motions, playing church.  He was sold out in his love for the Lord.

I think I can learn some things from Paul as I contemplate what 2025 holds for me and my level of commitment.  As I wake up and read God’s love letter to me, I want to be open to change my thought patterns, my prejudices about others, my schedule, my finances to reflect that God is really the one in control of me.  I know it will sometimes be hard to change because “old habits die hard.”  But as I think about Saul who God miraculously converted into Paul”, I think if He can do that for Paul—then He can change me too!
 
- Alan McNeely