Proverbs 18:16 says a man's gift makes room for him. The Hebrew literally means to broaden. God will use gifts He provides to broaden our horizons in the new year! Many of us have New Year's resolutions and ambitions and it's important to recognize that our gifts make room for our goals!
First we need to make sure ours is a God-given goal. There are lots of good goals, but only God-given goals are worthy of our devotion and greatest efforts. The spiritual gifts God provides will help us with that determination. In 1 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul lists nine gifts the Holy Spirit provides believers. One of those gifts is the gift of discernment. God doesn't want us wandering through life wondering what His will is. Discernment will help us to determine God's will by recognizing when a goal is truly God-given! We spend way too much time asking God to bless what we're doing, when we simply should be doing what He is blessing! In the Bible, God often refers to Himself as a shepherd. Shepherds use their staff to keep the sheep moving in the right direction. God calls His staff favor (Zechariah 11:10). God uses divine favor to steer us in the right direction. What is God blessing in your life? What is His favor upon? Give your devotion to that and you will accomplish great things for God in the coming year!
The next thing we need to do is write our goals down and contemplate them regularly. God told His prophet Habakuk to write down the vision he had been given so that those who would declare the vision could easily read it and run with it. (Habakuk 2:2) We need to do the same. The gifts we have been given will energize us for the tasks at hand. Along with the gift of discernment, Paul also describes the gift of faith in 1 Corinthians 12. If a goal is truly God-given, we will have faith for what we have been called to achieve and we won't have to manufacture energy for it. Each day, as we pull out our written goals and contemplate them, faith will rise up in our hearts and put wind in our sails! There is nothing more exhausting than trying to manufacture energy for goals that God never gave us in the first place. Just ask Rehoboam! This backslidden son of Solomon tried to replace the decorative gold shields his father had placed in the temple with brass ones. Once the original shields were stolen by raiding parties from Egypt, Rehoboam had a chance to recognize that his heart was in the wrong place and repent before God. Instead, he put up a front and put up phony shields, pretending like everything was ok. Can you imagine how hard he had to work to make brass shields shine like gold? About as hard as we have to work to manufacture energy for things God has not called us to! It's time to get our focus on God's mandate for our lives!
After we have determined what our God-given goals are and we have written them down, we need to become accountable to someone for those goals. Not everyone needs to know our goals, but someone needs to know what we are believing God to help us achieve. Once again, the gifts come into play when it comes to accountability. Those gifts are described in Ephesians 4 as our spiritual leaders. The leadership that God brings into our lives are His gifts to us and one of the things they provide is accountability. When I was young in the faith and in ministry, I knew I was called to do ministry full time, but had no opportunity. I tried to be faithful with any door God opened. I was leading worship at a youth event when I met the State Youth Director for the denomination we were a part of. He pursued a relationship with me and over time, learned of my goal to be in ministry full time. One day he called me to let me know about a pastor that was looking to hire a full time youth pastor at a church in Lafayette. That was 32 years ago. I served the church for 8 years as their youth pastor and now I serve as their Lead Pastor. The reason I serve as the Lead Pastor of Crossroads Church is because God's gifts made room for me here!
The last thing I want to point out about achieving our God-given goals this year is that we must break those goals down into manageable steps that can be carried out. Where the gift of discernment described in 1 Corinthians 12 will help us determine what our truly God-given goals are, the gift of wisdom will help us formulate a plan for carrying those goals out. This plan is important because we have to move beyond a wish and a whim and we have to take corresponding steps of action towards our goals. In the Bible there's a book called The Acts of the Apostles. Notice, there's no book called the Intentions of the Apostles. We must move beyond intention into action to see our goals realized in the coming year!
Your gifting will provide you with purchasing power that will help you accomplish your God-given goals. Achievement isn't cheap! Jesus says we should count the cost when we are contemplating what we will do for His glory (Luke 14:28). God has provided a form of currency within our gifting. Proverbs 17:8 says a gift is as a precious stone in the eyes of him that has it; wherever it turns, it prospers. Lets cash in on the value our gifts provide this year and accomplish all the things God has put in our hearts to achieve!
Because we don't know if the baby is a boy or a girl, we currently all refer to it as "Potato." We pray for Potato every day and carry Potato's picture around and show it off regularly. We are going to be the best grandparents ever! I grew up right next door to my grandfather and he had such a tremendous impact on who I am today. Chase is actually named after him. (Chase Walker Ables is named after John Walker Russell) I hope and pray that I will have that kind of impact on little Potato! 
They have all sorts of fun things available for expecting couples today. Robin and Eli send us screenshots weekly from an App they use that lets you know how big the baby is currently. (Weight, length and comparisons. This week the baby is the size of a plumb.) We look forward every week to getting the updates! 
