The Word of the Year — Inspire
The word of the year…
This is something that I have never really done before but the Bible study I started attending and taking part in challenged all members to pray about a word for the year.
Initially, my word was compassion. I’ve been struggling to displaying compassion towards people who are knowingly disrespectful due to self-indulgence or ego.
It’s like, I assume those people know they could be more considerate and respectful of others. And maybe they don’t know that; maybe people who are bothering me in that way simply aren’t aware.
After sharing that word and the reasoning behind it with my Monday Bible study group, David suggested the word inspire may be more fitting for me.
So our leader Brandon challenged me to spend the upcoming week in prayer about my word and see what God put on my heart.
By the next week I was much more confident in my word for 2020. This time however, the word I presented was inspire.
I know what needs to be done to improve the consideration that we have towards others and the respect that we show to people. There are many many things. But what I realized and what others helped reveal to me, is that some people just don’t know how to be considerate or what benefit that provides to them.
So now in 2020, my word is inspire.
Inspire can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
Here are a few of the definitions for inspire that I found:
to spur on
to exert an animating, enlivening, or exalting influence on
to influence, move, or guide by divine or supernatural
to influence or impel
to fill someone with confidence and desire to do something
to give someone the enthusiasm to do or create something
This piece isn’t all about goals — it’s about direction.
I said above that this is a guiding word for the year.
This word will direct my actions — it’s my focus.
Is what I’m going to do going to inspire? That’s the question that I’ll continuously ask myself, over and over, and time and time again.
I wrote recently about creating goals and what it takes to create strong goals, “Going for Goals”
Another great resource on the topic of goals and understanding who we can become is James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits” which I finished in the fall of 2019, my thoughts linked here.
Overall, I’m looking forward to inspiring.
What is your calling?
What is my calling?
It’s evolving and God is revealing who I am supposed to be more and more each and every day. God is guiding our steps all the time so long as we seek Him and allow Him control over the things we try to clutch on this earth.
Who we are to become was predestined before we were even born here.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” — Jeremiah 1:5 NIV
