Tag Archives: Takeaway

2 Priorities for 2023

2023 is a week away, and I’m already thinking about personal challenges and goals for next year.

At the beginning of every year, many people make what we call “resolutions” that usually involve getting healthier or making more time for important things like family time or projects around the house. Many make spiritual goals as well, such as reading the Bible or fasting more. Of course, all of these goals are great, but we often get distracted by mid-year and abandon those resolutions. The older I get, the more I simplify my life. I’ve got a few small things I’d like to work on in 2023, but the two largest priorities I have and that I believe are essential for us to make every year are 1) spiritual growth and 2) financial security.

Let’s face it – the Christmas season is stressful mostly because many of us have maxed out credit cards or overspent our paychecks trying to buy presents for friends and family. And there are often other expenses that come due this time of year that add to the stress. Money seems to be on the brain more than the reason why we celebrate Christmas. Stressing over our finances takes the joy of Christmas away when instead of seeing the joy on your loved one’s face when they open their gift, all you see are dollar signs.

And it’s also true that when we’re busy with life, we can often neglect our spiritual health and relationship with God.

I made one major goal for myself in 2022 and that was to study the Word more in-depth and get closer to God, and having done so throughout this year has reminded me of the importance of properly ordering your priorities. It all comes down to stewardship. How well am I managing what God has given me? Am I saving money? Am I investing in the Kingdom both financially and spiritually? We should be able to look back over our life at the end of each year and see how God has drawn us closer to Him over the past several months. And we should be able to look to our future every year knowing that the present choices we’re making are to ensure future financial security.

Yes, God will always provide for our needs, but He wants us to be wise with our money – it all belongs to Him, after all. We have the responsibility to invest financially in our future for our own sakes and for our family’s.

“But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”

1 Timothy 5:8 KJV

In order for us to be able to provide for our families and be able to give to the Kingdom, we have to start making wise financial decisions now. If you’re young, that might look like going to trade school or college and pursuing a stable career. If you’re a bit older, it might look like investing in your kids’ future needs over yours or their present wants. For all of us, making wise financial decisions involves having a good work ethic so we can earn raises and promotions, saying “no” to our flesh when we want to buy something completely unnecessary and ridiculously expensive, saving money consistently, avoiding charging everything to credit cards, and cutting out little unnecessary expenses that add up over the year (like weekly Starbucks runs or fast food for lunch every day). Regardless of where you’re at in life, it is never too late or early to start saving, spending wisely, investing in your future, and investing in the Kingdom.

If you take care of your relationship with God each year and make wise financial decisions, He will take care of you. Rest assured, your future will be secure, and everything else (where you’ll live, who you’ll marry, when you’ll get married, where you’ll be in five years, etc.) will fall into place according to God’s timing and perfect will.

In 2023, let’s focus on God and wise investments and see how He continues to pour out His blessings upon His people as we pursue Him more and spread this Gospel to the people around us. May the Light of Jesus shine so bright in us that it snuffs out the darkness and ignites our communities and families with the Holy Ghost!

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my Breathe Pray Repeat readers! I pray these posts have blessed and encouraged you this year. This will be the last BPR post until February as I’ll be taking a break in January to focus on some themes and direction for this blog in 2023.

See y’all in the new year! God Bless!

~Caitlin

The Takeaway

At the end of a year, I always find myself reflecting on how I may have changed over the past twelve months and the overarching lesson I may have learned. In 2019, I was anxious for the year to end. 2019 didn’t see my personal life growing the way I had hoped it would. My family endured emotional struggles, and it was largely an uneventful year. At the beginning of 2020, I was hopeful. In an early Facebook post, I wrote that I was “claiming 2020 as a year of growth, positive change, restoration, fulfillment, and joy.”

Well, January passed, and I still wasn’t happy in my personal life. I was in my final semester at Missouri State University and longed for it to be over so my life could finally start. February passed, and March came, and the pandemic began to rear its ugly head. College moved completely online.

Online classes were an easy transition for me. I’d taken at least two online classes every semester since my second in college, and I loved online learning. I didn’t have a job, and therefore, staying at home 98% of the time as opposed to 90% of the time hardly changed my life at all. Online church was a big adjustment for my family and church, but we held onto the fact that we knew we’d all be back together again, and several weeks later, we were.

During the first few months of the pandemic, my personal problems and plans took a backseat to adjusting to our new schedule and growing concern over the state of the country. I’d expected to have a full-time job by the time I’d graduated, but very few places in my local area wanted to hire new employees during a pandemic. It appeared this year would not be the year I had dreamed it would be. How could I grow when there were no opportunities to go places and experience the next phase of my adult life? How could there be any positive change amidst a pandemic? How could I find restoration when more things in my life were taken away? How could I find fulfillment and joy when there was distraction, frustration, and turmoil in my life and all around me?

The summer passed, and God blessed me with a part-time online position as a writing tutor, and though it wasn’t what I had hoped it would be, 2020 began to change me for the better.

After a series of sermons and messages during which God spoke into my life, I decided to cut distractions out of my life and give God complete control over my desires and plans. In the lowest moment of my life when I despaired over whether I would truly be able to connect with God the way I needed to for a miracle to happen in my life, God spoke to me about pouring out my entire being to Him and serving Him with everything, even if I didn’t think it amounted to very much.

So, I started this blog, stepping far out of my comfort zone, to use for Him the passion He gave me for writing. And after several weeks of studying His Word more, praying more fervently, and seeking Him more, I’ve become closer to Him and closer to the person He wants me to be. Lord knows (and my family knows), I am lightyears away from being that best version of myself, but I am closer than I was when 2020 started.

I prayed for growth, and I got it.

I now run two websites and a blog on two social media sites, and God blessed me with publication of a short story of mine over the summer.

I asked for positive change, and I got it.

2019 me had become less than pleased with my personal life and where I was in my life. I wanted to be as happy and content as I had been so long ago before I allowed college and spiritual struggles to drain me and weaken my joy. So, I prayed for restoration, fulfillment, and joy.

2020 me found restoration, fulfillment, and joy in my relationship with God alone. It took years of suffering and a pandemic to stir my soul and move me to action, but I decided not to allow my pain to control my life anymore.

God gave me everything I had asked for in 2020. None of it looked like what I had thought it would, but He didn’t fail me, and He never will.

What’s the takeaway I learned from this year?

Speak life, not death over your situation. Words have power.

Pray in faith. The storm may still be brewing, but our peace is in God, and He is the Miracle-Worker.

Believe in God. Whatever His Promises are for you, they will come to pass.

Look up. Look up to Jesus where our help comes from, and look up to Heaven, our eternal home, because He is coming back soon.

I struggled as we all have in various ways this year, but I became a different person than I was in January 2020. I grew, changed for the better, was restored in my soul, and became fulfilled and filled with the joy of the Lord. I still have a long way to go, but 2020 taught me to never give up and never go back to the way I used to be.

Only God knows what 2021 may bring us, but no matter what may come, my prayer is that we will see the promises of God become manifested in our lives and that we will become the strong, faithful fighters for truth and humble servants of God that He wants us to be.

So, speak life. Pray in faith. Believe in God. Look up.

Jesus is on the Throne!