{"id":726,"date":"2015-12-29T17:51:19","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T17:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?p=726"},"modified":"2015-12-29T17:51:19","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T17:51:19","slug":"new-year-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2015\/12\/new-year-plans.html","title":{"rendered":"New Year Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We are entering a new year. We may have plans, goals, and resolutions but have we stopped to invite God into the process? It is good to plan the year. Ask Him meet us in it \u2013 to dwell with us there. That\u2019s not only a good thing but a wise thing to do.<\/p>\n<p>In 2 Samuel 6:12 we read about a man named Edom. The Ark of God was placed in his home, temporarily. While it was there, God blessed him and all he had. Solomon assures us in Proverbs 3:33 that, \u201cHe blesses the home of the righteous\u201d. Do we want all God has for us this year and do we want Him to bless all that we do? Let\u2019s ask God into the planning; not wait until we have gotten ourselves into a mess.<\/p>\n<p>So often when we plan we worry and fret over whether we have covered all our bases. Second-guess ourselves. He wants us to quit striving and trying to figure things out. Trust Him. He wants to be in control of the process and planning.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s already got plans for this year. His plans are precise \u2013 nothing is by accident &#8211; and perfect. His ways are good.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s ask God to meet us this New Year in a special way. Let&#8217;s make plans as to how we will meet with Him: at what time, morning? afternoon? evening? where? Do you have a cozy, comfortable spot? What will your time look like? (you don\u2019t have to follow some formula from someone else.) Journaling? Reading the scriptures? Studying the scriptures? Praying the scriptures? Praying? What posture? standing\u2026kneeling\u2026sitting\u2026lying down? If you need some ideas there are many good books out now to help with your private devotional time. There are many. Just go to Amazon and type in \u201cBible devotional\u201d &#8211; you will be flooded with titles. Actually, I published a 100 devotional book: <em>Fear Not Tomorrow God, is Already There.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>This past year I read through <em>The Chronological Bible<\/em>. Excellent. Some days the reading was quite difficult but I made it! It was worth it to me and I recommend that Bible or <em>The Daily Walk Bible<\/em>. God will bless your efforts. And we can rejoice today for the blessing that is already waiting for us in our tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>Happy New Year!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are entering a new year. We may have plans, goals, and resolutions but have we stopped to invite God into the process? It is good to plan the year. Ask Him meet us in it \u2013 to dwell with us there. That\u2019s not only a good thing but a wise thing to do. In&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78,44,32,25,16,84,33,37,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-hope","category-how-do-we-experience-god","category-new-years","category-personal-thoughts","category-praise","category-prayer","category-resolutions","category-worship"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>New Year Plans - Safe Place with Ruth Graham<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2015\/12\/new-year-plans.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Year Plans - Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We are entering a new year. We may have plans, goals, and resolutions but have we stopped to invite God into the process? It is good to plan the year. Ask Him meet us in it \u2013 to dwell with us there. That\u2019s not only a good thing but a wise thing to do. In&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2015\/12\/new-year-plans.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-12-29T17:51:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"New Year Plans - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2015\/12\/new-year-plans.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"New Year Plans - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","og_description":"We are entering a new year. We may have plans, goals, and resolutions but have we stopped to invite God into the process? It is good to plan the year. Ask Him meet us in it \u2013 to dwell with us there. That\u2019s not only a good thing but a wise thing to do. 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No stranger to heartache, she seeks to provide a Biblical perspective to her journey of faith. She is warm and talks openly about her own need for a safe place as she journeyed through her husband\u2019s infidelities, her subsequent depression, her divorces, her teenage daughter\u2019s two unplanned pregnancies, another daughter\u2019s bulimia, her son\u2019s battle with drugs, grandson's special needs and returning to school at age 40. Although born into the \"famous\" Graham family Ruth did not feel she had a safe place to unburden the secrets of her life. She felt she had to project and image and wear a mask that she \"had it all together\". She had to meet others' expectations of her. It was not until a mid-life crisis did that she fully discover the unconditional love and grace of God. Her life's passion is to connect people to that same grace and love she found, no matter who they are or what sin. Ruth is an experienced conference speaker and Bible teacher. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television shows including: Good Morning, America, The Hour of Power, Focus on the Family, Moody Broadcasting, Fox &amp; Friends, CBN, Life Today and CNN. She has worked in publishing for over 14 years and is the founder of the Ruth Graham &amp; Friends Ministry. Ruth has three grown children and nine grandchildren. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Her life Bible verse is John 1:16.","sameAs":["http:\/\/ruthgrahamministries.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/author\/rgraham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/466"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":728,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions\/728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}