What do you want? Do you live by default in hopes that what you want comes, or do you speak as if the desires of your heart are to be so? In the past, I couldn’t wait for a new year. I was always wishing for the past year to be over in hopes that a new one would magically bring change. However, the last few years have been different. Each year since 2015 has brought so much progress and growth that I ended those years really grateful. 2019 was no exception.

I look at 2020 as not a new beginning, but simply another step up. The previous years providing a solid framework for new growth. I used to look at a new year as running away from the previous one and just hoping God would be proud enough of me in the next year for it to be better. A new year always meant a new beginning, a new start.

But starting over every year is exhausting and I never got very far.

It’s much, much better to build on the progress and momentum of the previous year – no matter how small. I no longer have a running away or starting over mentality. Instead, I’m moving forward and getting better and better.

There’s a difference.

I stopped celebrating closing the door to the old and hoping for better days. Rather, I’m celebrating a great year – with all the ups and downs – and walking into the new year with Great Expectations!

It’s so freeing when you don’t feel like your life is a crapshoot.

So what changed?

I’m finally grasping the fact that we have what we say. A truth found in Mark 11:22-24.

…I urge you to boldly believe for whatever you as for in prayer-be convinced that you have received it and it will be yours.

Mark 11:24 (TPT)

When we are in alignment with God’s Word and understand His promises to us and the authority given through Jesus, we can speak to our future as God intended. Basically, our life doesn’t have to be a guessing game. The people I admire and learn from understood these principles years ago, but I’m still fairly infantile in my understanding.

For decades, I was so frustrated with my life and it wasn’t anyone’s fault but my own. My own lips created my life – and that can be a hard pill to swallow.

But it’s also really great news.

If our lives are determined by our lips, then we can do something about the direction of our lives! It’s not out of our hands. We are not ping pong balls being tossed around by the whims of other people…unless we let them.

Yet we all tend to believe that life is just that: day-in and day-out of being jostled and tossed about like a sailboat with no sail. If that were true, then our lives would be pitied because we could only wish that the wind and waves would blow and toss in our favor.

But we have a sail and a rudder, our tongue.

• The condition of our heart controls our thoughts.
• Our thoughts control our mouths.
• Our mouths control our lives.

Hearts, thoughts, and mouths that are in alignment with the Words that God speaks create an unstoppable force!

2018 is the first year I truly put this into practice, and it was the first year in my life that I reached any of my goals. Now that I’ve had a little practice, last year wan an EXPLOSION of blessing and favor. And 2020 will be too as I continue to learn the power of my words when they are in alignment with the things God is doing.

There’s zero doubt in my mind that many aspects of our personal and professional lives can be turned around before the end of this next year. It starts by knowing what God’s will is for whatever area you want to see change. God’s will is for healing. God’s will is that we are kind. His will is that there is no strife in our homes. His will is that everything our hand touches, prospers. When we know what God’s will is, we can speak life and truth into every area that we want to see change. God gave us that power and authority.

So HAPPY NEW YEAR and may this be a year that you speak life and blessings into your circumstances and situations that need a turnaround.

And go ahead…tell 2020 what you want it to do for you!