God is Able
From Resolutions to Revelation: Trusting What God Has Already Said
Did I wish you a Happy New Year?? I feel like I have just kept writing without acknowledging that we changed years. I wonder if God uses our calendars in heaven or if every day is just a new day to show us his mercy?
HAPPY NEW YEAR, SWEET PEOPLE!!!
Speaking of mercy, I was feeling so blessed to have found some of the things I wrote since 2015 that I thought were lost forever. I am sharing one today. I hope it blesses you as much as it blessed me, reading it again. I made a few tweaks, but let me know if you can tell.
I overheard a conversation between a mother and her daughter today that got me thinking. It was in a supermarket, and the little girl was holding a packet of wafers she had picked up, telling her mum all about it. For the most part, the mum just stayed silent and didn’t really respond as her daughter spoke.
Then the little girl said something that caught my attention and made me smile. She said, “I’m going to get this one. I want this one, and I’m going to get it because you promised me I could pick whatever I wanted.” I didn’t look back to see the mum’s reaction, but I was certain she wasn’t going to argue with her daughter; she was going to have to fulfil that promise. It also occurred to me that this lady wouldn’t have made her daughter that promise if she wasn’t able to keep it.
As I walked on, still smiling, the Holy Spirit said to me, “That is how your relationship with God should be.” The word that came to me was a portion of Romans 4:21 that says that God is “fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises.” It was the same verse I had read earlier in the morning during my devotion, so I knew God was trying to show me something through that mother and child. I was also reminded of this verse: “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion” (Philippians 1:6).
I personally needed those words of encouragement. As I step into this new year, I’m choosing to trust God and believe his promises, but a part of me can’t help wondering if it’s ever going to happen. I look back at the previous year and how quickly it went by, and sometimes it feels like the promises I’m holding onto are no closer than they were months ago. So if anyone needed to be reminded of God’s promises at the start of this year, I definitely did.
We’re at the beginning (to me, it is still the beginning 🤪) of a new year. For many of us, this is usually the time of fresh goals, new plans, and big expectations. We write resolutions, make declarations, and enter the year full of hope. Maybe you even received specific promises, prophecies, or a “word for the year” that you’re excited about. But if you’re honest, some of last year’s disappointments are still sitting quietly in the background of your heart. You may be wondering if this year will really be any different or if you’ll just carry the same unanswered prayers into yet another January.
It can feel like the more you work, the less you have to show for it, despite the fact that God promised to “bless the work of our hands.” You have needs and desires you’ve been believing God for, and as the calendar resets, they’re still there—no obvious change, no dramatic turnaround. Yet God has said he is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20), and Christ specifically commanded us not to worry because our Father already knows what we need.
And then there is the woman who is entering this new year with the memory of yet another miscarriage, a failed IVF, or the sight of another period instead of the positive pregnancy test she had prayed for. I wonder how many times you have cried to God and reminded him that he promised to give you the fruit of the womb. You may be stepping into this year already tired, already guarded, already wondering how much more hoping you can do.
So I get it, so many promises, and yet you cannot see any clear indication of them being fulfilled. At the start of a new year, when everyone is shouting “new season” and “new beginnings,” you might quietly be asking yourself if God is even real or if he is really listening to you.
What I want to tell you today is this: God is able to fulfil his promises to you, regardless of how you feel or what it looks like, regardless of what last year held or didn’t hold. Just like that child in the supermarket, you can go back to him confidently and boldly and tell him that you believe him because he promised. Remember that when God speaks a word, he watches over it to perform it (Jeremiah 1:12). I was reading Genesis this morning, and it was almost comical how often Jacob reminded God of his promises to him when he was afraid of seeing Esau.
You might say, “But I’ve never heard God speak to me. I didn’t hear a loud, booming voice in the middle of the night with a specific promise.” Even so, because of Christ, every promise God has made in his word is available to you. That is why you have to have faith in his word and believe his word. You have to genuinely know his will, which is revealed in his word (yes, that is the Bible), and learn to confess it when life seems impossible.
At the beginning of this year, instead of only making resolutions based on your own strength, go back to him and say: “But Father, you promised me in your word that you are able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all I could ever ask or imagine.” Also, make sure you ask him for his heart and thoughts around that situation and pray for alignment.
Kenneth Hagin suggested that when you are facing a situation, find a promise in God’s word and believe it. Continue to confess it and thank God for bringing that promise to pass. Remember Philippians 4:6, where we are told to “be anxious for nothing, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” That is what we are required to do.
If you are starting this year with a project, business, career move, or dream that feels uncertain, go to the Lord and pray. Continually confess that “the Lord has promised to bless the work of my hands,” even when you don’t yet see the results. Keep saying, “Thank you, Lord, for blessing the work of my hands,” and don’t stop until you begin to see it happen. This is just one example, but no matter what situation you are going through, you can apply this same principle.
One of our biggest problems is that we don’t even know what God has promised us. The little girl in that store knew exactly what her mum had promised her and used her mum’s own words to receive what she wanted. You can’t have faith and trust in a Father you don’t know or have a relationship with.
The only way to enjoy God’s promises this year is to know his will through his word (that Bible again) and pray according to his will. If you know his will, then you can approach him confidently, just as 1 John 5:14 says: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.”
The bottom line is this: God is able to do ANYTHING, so trust him.
I pray that we don’t forget who our Father is, and he can and will do abundantly more than we can hope for or imagine.
Love,
Tito.