Good riddance, 2017!

It’s not that this year wasn’t good, because it was. I was given good health and so was my family. My church family is growing. I have immeasurable blessings. God is ever faithful, all merciful, and abundantly gracious to me. 2017 was yet another splendid showing of God’s great love, and I am thankful for the time He gave me to live on His beautiful earth.

But, I am so ready for 2018. Why? Because I am prayerful that it is the year the Lord will return.

While 2017 was good, it was hard. An entire year of postpartum depression is hard. Thinking that you’re getting better only to be faced with a day that is so miserable you want to stay in bed and hide under the covers is hard. Watching the people you love continue in sin is hard. Watching people you love get hurt because of someone else’s sin is hard. Living in a world so polluted and corrupted by sin is hard, isn’t it?

I am so ready for heaven. I am ready to be united with my God — to stand before Him and erupt in praise! To bow before Him with all the gratitude I can muster! To sing my spirit hoarse in adoration for His holiness and goodness! I am ready for that Day. I am ready to live in that city, with no pain and no hurt and no hard things. Only good things. Pure things. Lovely things. Oh, how I want that Day to come in 2018!

Do you?

Only those who are ready want that day to come. Only those who aren’t too attached to the world and everything in it want that day to come. I’m not saying I’m better than someone who doesn’t want that day to come…I’m actually just kinda sad for that person. Because nothing on earth is better than all that that Day will bring. And if you’re living for the here-and-now, for the temporal, for the earthly…you’ll never know true joy and unending peace. And I want that for you. I want that for everyone. For my family, my friends, my followers, my fellow man. For every single human being – black, white, Republican, Democrat, Middle Eastern, American, illiterate, poor, rich, sick, well. I want everyone on the face of this planet to know Christ and to long for His return in 2018.

So are you looking forward to 2018 for that reason? Do you want Him to come in 2018? Are you ready for that day? Have you submitted to His will? Are you living His way?

If you’re like me, your 2017 was filled with some messing up. There are so many days I can look back on and praise God that Jesus didn’t return, because I was neck-deep in sinful mire. I don’t want any days like that in 2018. I want every night to be a spent in prayer that He’ll come while I’m asleep, and every morning to be spent longing for my last day. I want the Lord to come back, and I want to be ready. Every single moment of the coming year.

So goodbye, 2017. You were hard, but that’s okay because you were giving me even more reason to seek Christ and long for His return.