Whatever you seek to achieve this year, go with the strength you have. Yes, you heard me right. Whatever your goals and aspirations are for your personal life, marriage, family, career, business, studies or ministry, go with the strength you have.
That sounds like a strange advice coming from a Bible-believing pastor, isn’t it? Didn’t Jesus say “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5)? Didn’t the psalmist remind us that God “knows how weak we are, he remembers we are only dust” (Psalm 103:14)? With what strength then am I to face the new year? With what strength can achieve my goals?
Well, as I’ve said, go with the strength you have.
Before you get annoyed with me, let me explain. In Judges 6 in the Bible, we read about how the Israelites were being oppressed by the Midianites. The situation was pretty bleak. The Midianites would destroy the crops of the Israelites, strip the land bare, and leave the Israelites hungry and afraid. One day, a man named Gideon was hiding some grain in his threshing floor when an angel appeared before him and said:
Mighty hero, the Lord is with you! … Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you! (Judges 6:12, 14).
Gideon was startled by this announcement. He tried to talk his way out of this call by saying that his clan was the weakest in all of Israel and that he was the least in his family. He was living in fear and failure for so long that he could not imagine that he or any other Israelite would be strong enough to rescue Israel from the Midianites. However, here are some truths that Gideon had to embrace:
- My identity is defined by God, not by my past.
- My future is determined by the grace of God, not by my weakness and failure.
- My success is decided by God who calls and sends me.
- My strength is dependent on the presence of God.
These are truths that we must embrace as well as we face the new year. Receive the grace of God. Recognize his presence in your life. Go with the strength you have, mighty hero, for the Lord is with you. He is your strength.
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Clear intentions 
Sooooooo helpful. Thanks Lloyd
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Thank you!
Something I needed to be reminded of today. My breathing is very bad after a dust storm three months ago. It has deteriorated greatly in the last 4 weeks. Unable to see a doctor I have to rely on our great Physician for His timing for healing. I’m supposed to go to Nigeria within the next four months. How was I going to be able to do this if I’m still with shortness of breath? Then I read this, that you wrote and I knew as I have in the last 3 years, I will go in the grace of our Lord. For He is my strength and His grace is sufficient for me. In my weakness He will be glorified. And Father will be magnified šš