2023 Word of the Year

Check out the previous post on 2022.

All this brings me to 2023. A couple songs come to mind as I contemplated and prayed about a word for 2023. 

Songs:

Believe for It

Cece Winnons

I believe it now 

Sidewalk Prophets 

Hope says 

Consumed by Fire

There’s hope in front of me

Danny Gokey

Hope has a Name 

River Valley Music 

At first I thought of the word believe. But that just didn’t seem quite right. Then believe led me to hope. Landing on hope seemed to be a light after a dark year. A forward looking focus. The first two songs I listed above may not talk a lot about hope, but I think they both point to the hope we should believe in. A sermon I recently heard talked about “ Overarching hope” and that’s the place I want to be is to have that hope over everything else in life. I want to hold on to hope. I want to believe for it. 

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭15‬:‭13‬

There are a lot of other scriptures that come to mind about hope, but one more that stood out to me was:

“We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain,”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭6‬:‭19‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Today as I was just thinking about some current situations, God brought these lyrics to my mind. I was praying and asked God, “How do I do _____? How do I get through______?” The words of Great is Thy Faithfulness came as my answer: “Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” Again, the simple reminder that God will give us what we need for today - His strength. And He will also give us hope for tomorrow. 

I love seeing these little (yet big) ways God speaks to us. May we be open to seeing Him work and hearing His voice. Then I pray we go out and tell of our testimony of how He is at work in our lives. 

A couple more scriptures about hope:

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭1‬-‭5‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭29‬:‭11‬ ‭ESV‬‬