People try all kinds of approaches and tactics to establish themselves in better ways . . . who they are, what they do, how they are perceived, etc. Being established helps people live their daily lives. And in the first months of a new year, this topic is still on people’s minds. Maybe it’s on your mind.
What have you done to establish yourself?
Are you thinking 2020 yet? 2020 can mean lots of things. Often, 20/20 refers to good vision. Right now, it means a New Year. In fact, it means a new decade!
With a New Year around the corner, you need 20/20 vision – and that means setting goals for your life.
You may have been privileged to receive some kind of honor or award for a significant accomplishment. Perhaps you gained scholarship recognition. Maybe it’s been a military medal or a sport-related achievement. Perhaps you are an esteemed author, speaker, or political leader. You may be one of many of us who have simply made it through required levels of school, kissed your diploma, moved your tassel from right to left, and landed a job worthy of supporting daily living. That, too, is a worthy honor and accomplishment.
In this troubled, broken world, how encouraging to know God has a plan – a good, flexible, vast, yet detailed plan. God loves you deeply, and He has a plan for your life, too. This plan has encouragement, guidance, and hope. To discover this wonderful plan, you must decide what’s your number one. Depending how you answer that, it launches you into God’s good plan for your life – or not.
The topic for today is fresh new life. You know life can shift pretty quickly. 
Mostly it’s in the small stuff. I’m sure you’ve been in a jam at some point. Caught in bad circumstances. You have that dreaded, instant panic feeling. It could be you lost your wallet or left your purse on a shelf in a store aisle. Perhaps you forgot to pay an important bill. You may have broken something very special or ruined a plant you were nurturing. Your keys to a public building, a safe, and your own home are missing.
Maybe you ran your car into someone’s fence or got pulled over for speeding. Maybe you said something you later regret terribly.
These kinds of things make your stomach churn. You just hope for some way to reconcile things with as little pain and upset as possible. Many of these scenarios are minor and temporary. Some scenarios are the big stuff – serious and life altering with long-term losses.
I’m sure you have held an infant, completely helpless, very hungry, in your arms. They depend utterly on you to protect and nourish them. Their intense, desperate delight as they grab the bottle you offer, shows their utter focus on themselves and their complete dependency on you for survival. It’s a precious memory to feed an infant.
Picture an older child, teen, or adult in that same scenario, however, and you get a completely different reaction inside. It’s repulsive. They should be actively engaged, handling a fork and knife (or chop-sticks) as second nature. The expectation is pretty simple – lose the bottle! Grow up!
