God answered my prayers for the year

At the end of 2015, I was frustrated. My year had been good but not exceptional and there were some very specific things holding me back which I knew I had to do something about. A few weeks into 2016 I decided I was ready for a change and made a list of 4 things I wanted from the year and committed them to God. God brought me 3 out of 4.

The first one was drawing closer to Him, which was something I prayed about at the start of every year. To provide a bit of context, I had grown up in church and attended Sunday services pretty regularly throughout my adult life. In all that time, however, I can pinpoint only a few specific moments in my life when I've felt close to the God, a feeling I've tried to replicate ever since. I've always struggled with consistently reading my Bible, praying, and fasting, therefore it's no surprise I struggled to make revolutionary changes in my walk with Christ. In 2016, I consciously signed up to lots of devotional Bible plans on my app, made an effort to pray every morning, and even got more involved at church. My journey is nowhere near complete and I'm still not even close to where I want to be, but the journey has begun and to me that's the most important thing.

The second item on my list for the year was a promotion at work. I'd been in the organisation for just over a year on a graduate programme and really wanted my hard work and efforts to be recognised at the end of it all. Let me just highlight that a promotion was not guaranteed at the end of the scheme and an interview for promotion hadn't even been mentioned. If at the end of the scheme they felt I had performed well enough, I'd be offered a full time job, which for most people was enough; but for me my eyes were set elsewhere and it was something I really wanted so I committed it to God.

Later in the year I was told the organisation had decided to interview me for promotion which was incredible! Being the self-proclaimed geek I am I started prepping straight away and did lots of research on practice questions and competencies. A month later I was told the interview may not happen due to some internal issues but further news was to follow. I don't think this phased me that much as I knew God was in control but nonetheless I prayed for His intervention. To cut a (very) long story short my team fought long and hard for me to be granted this interview which naturally made me feel under a lot of pressure to perform - failure was definitely not an option! By His grace I passed the interview and was granted the promotion a few weeks later (isn't God good?).

Although I won't go into the third thing on my list (for a multitude of reasons), God showed Himself in that as well and freed me from something I'd been struggling with for a long time.

I think the moral of my story is don't settle... in ANY aspect of your life. Even when you don't think He is, God's working. Even when you think He's abandoned you, He's still there. Although I'm still learning these lessons for myself, trust in Him with ALL your heart and lean not on your own understanding, cast all your burdens onto Him and the results truly will be incredible! He is a miracle working God and His ability to change situations and people is simply limitless. There is nothing on earth that God cannot do and the sooner we stop ourselves from self-censoring the types of problems we hand to Him the better.

The fourth is still a work in progress but I'm trusting God for a testimony in that area in due course.