What’s NEW in 2022?

The ‘new year, new me’ phase lasts as long as our New Years’ resolutions and before we know it – we are welcoming back our old habits with open arms because the warmth of familiarity is easier to live with than the whiff of failure. The problem is that this kind of bad-habit-forming disposition never leaves room for change or growth.

Could we redefine the change we seek? Rather than choosing to be different – let us choose to be dedicated, dependable, unbending, constant in seeking out: growth. 

Growth is not determined by size or increase, not by bigness or greatness. Growth is determined by a deepening of sorts, a strengthening, a gaining, a growing-up process, or a growing-out-of practice. Growth does not necessarily reflect a change. Sometimes growth is more of an internal nourishing, and restorative process. Maybe growth this year looks like a healing journey more than a heightening one.

As the end of 2021 draws to a close, I find myself grateful for things that once came as an obvious and presumptuous prerequisite. Now, I’m simply grateful for life. And for those with whom I get to enjoy this life. 

A lot can happen in a year. And as we are all well aware, the last two years have been tumultuous. The turbulence of these times has left me feeling triggered, timid, and tame. But Jesus has not given us a spirit of timidity or fear. No, it’s a spirit of power: dunamas power.

At every year-end, I ask God to show me a glimpse of what the year ahead looks like so that I can prepare for what’s to come: both in the natural and the spiritual. And every year I choose a letter – instead of just one word – to lean on throughout the year. It’s a prophetic picture of what The Lord is showing me for the next season.

My phrase for 2022 is “Get up and Go, It’s time to Grow.”

My letter for 2022 is G – which maps out the following themes I feel on my heart for this next year.

I believe that 2022 will be a season marked by:

• A word: growth

• A thought: 

• It’s time to grow again, it’s time to gather that which has been sown and water that which God wills. We can either live gathered lives or scattered lives but not both.  – 1 Peter 4:10
• It’s time to become a gardener, and tend to our gardens – the soils deep within our souls. – 1 Peter 1:9
• It’s time to weed out what’s not of God and start to work on the dreams that God has planted in our hearts – 1 Corinthians 3:6-7
• It’s time to grow in holiness as we spend time with the Holy One – Colossians 1:10
• It’s time to take ground, press on, move into our areas of influence for the sake of the gospel message. – 1 Peter 2:9
• It’s time to let the Holy Spirit garnish our souls with His sweet-smelling fruit – Galatians 5:22
• It’s time to gain a gaze of gratitude – Colossians 1:12/Romans 1:21
• It’s time to grow in grace – 2 Peter 3:18
• It’s time to grow up in our salvation journey, grow in the knowledge of Christ and the Word of God – Ephesians 4:15/1 Peter 2:2
• It’s time to live guarded and not panicked – 1 Peter 1:5
• It’s time to live more freely and not boxed in by fear – 2 Timothy 1:7
• It’s time to move from feeling jagged to feeling gloriously joyful – 1 Peter 1:8
• It’s time to sew new garments for the fresh revelation God wants to pour out on His people – Luke 5:36-38

• A principle and practice for 2022:

Deuteronomy 1:6-8 – “The Lord our God spoke to us at Horeb: ‘You have stayed at this mountain long enough. Resume your journey and go to the hill country of the Amorites and their neighbors in the Arabah, the hill country, the Judean foothills, the Negev and the sea coast—to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon as far as the great river, the Euphrates River. See, I have set the land before you. Enter and take possession of the land.”

• Where is God asking you to GO?
• What mountain is God asking you to leave?
• Where is your ‘hill country’? (area of influence)
• What land is God asking you to possess? (area of growth) 

A scripture for 2022:

1 Peter 2:2 – “Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness.”

• A prayer for 2022:

Colossians 1:9-12 – “We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, so that you may have great endurance and patience, joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.”

Ephesians 1:17-19 – “I pray for you constantly, asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe Him.”

May grace surprise you kindly as you enter into this new year. May this year bring you into a deeper understanding of who Jesus is, may you grow to know Him more and love Him sincerely. May your old ways be shattered by the fresh revelation of the gospel message. And may grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, our One and Only, Lord and Saviour.

2 Peter 1:2 – “May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. By these, he has given us very great and precious promises.”