Today a friend mentioned we have a whole New Year ahead of us that is a clean slate. It is like a new snow before any footprints have made any paths.

Today we have fresh snowfall in our area. While I ponder how each step I make in the snow permanently changes how it looks I contemplate how each thing I do, each word I speak and each thought I think have potential to change the vista around my life to improve or detract.

Lord help me ponder my paths and where I go with my actions and words and the thoughts and motives behind them. Enable my paths to be filled with love for You and others as well as Your perfect peace, joy and gratitude. Let me not mar my hours and days of the coming years with the mud of resentment, bitterness or selfishness. Instead let me beautify the paths by sharing, giving, loving and serving those you place along my journey through 2017. Lord, I want to fully be engaged noticing others and the beauty of Your glorious creation as I walk through each moment you ordain. Deepen my appreciation of Your gifts, even ones that come in rocky steep terrains of suffering or inconveniences of a suddenly changed course. May I fully trust that Your Sovereign path for my life is for my good and Your glory and rest in your faithfulness.

So as I look at our new snow I notice where a bird or rabbit have gently left their marks as well as the gregarious patterns left by my two dogs. I ponder again how You, Lord allow times for us to quietly walk one slow step at a time and others when we must boldly bound out obediently where You lead. Give me discernment when to proceed with caution and when You are calling me to boldly step out of my comfort zone. Though truly, Lord, anywhere I walk with You should be my comfort zone. I desire to do what You call me to this year and ask you give me the ability to walk each step in faith and confidence instead of worry or fear.

So Lord, direct my steps on Your path that You have for me in 2017.

Amen