In my first blog of the year, Happy New Word, I challenged you to pray about a guiding word for this New Year of 2022. Last year my word was joy and I saw it manifested throughout the year. God has given me the word faith for 2022. I have been praying about which scripture to claim along with my word and God has led me to Psalm 37:3 and Hebrews 11:1.

Psalm 37:3 has been a favorite verse of mine for many years. “Trust in the Lord, and do good;
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.” Befriend is defined by ESV scholars as feeding upon faithfulness that leads to safety or safe pastures. I like to think of it as embracing faithfulness in my life. In order to embrace faithfulness fully, I need to walk in trust and seek to do good. This gives direction and hope to my faith and assurance of His protective hand upon me. What He has given me by faith is sealed by His Holy Spirit and cannot be lost. Ephesians 1:13 “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” My walk of trust and service will help me from misplacing my priorities. It is so easy to lose focus and to misplace my focus upon worldly things that surround me.

Hebrews 11:1 is also a favorite as it defines faith. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” When people question my faith, I can rely upon the hope and assurance I have in Christ that He is real, alive and with me always. I have that conviction as His Holy Spirit speaks to my spirit that I am His. Romans 8:16 “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” I can be assured that I am His and can be called His child.

In addition to choosing a scripture to go with my Word, I graphically used a program called Word Art to give me a visual of my word. It is an easy program to use and generates a fun art focus to hang near your desk or someplace where you can be reminded of your word. You need to ponder about your word and brainstorm other words it brings to mind. Select those 10 words related words that will expand and define different aspects of your word. My word of faith generated the following list for me: hope, goodness, strength, rooted as in rooted and grounded in faith, courage, trust, conviction, pleasing as in pleasing to God, assurance, and abundance. I made two visuals. One is in the shape of a heart which is red and the other a cloud in blue. The program can be found at http://www.wordart.com It is a free site. Here are my visuals:

I do not know how God will use this word in my life this year but I know He will. May this blog be an encouragement to you to pray about a Word for 2022 and to choose a scripture to claim and cling to during the year. God wants to lead and teach us…we just need to be open to His leading and His teaching.

Linda