The holidays are officially over but the effects of them will linger into the first quarter of this year. Credit card bills will arrive, sugar will need to be detoxed, those ten pounds of carbs you picked up this past season will need to be shed. I am thinking by late March early April we will be ready to really run this race that is set before us. The gym is filled with people today, the stores are having long lines at the return desk and the restaurants are doing their deep cleaning because no one is coming in. The after effect of over indulgence is real and many people are feeling it as they head back to work today. Yet for others, the holidays being over is a welcome relief, for they are ready to get back to work.

Natural things have always been ways of sharing spiritual realities. Jesus spoke in parables to people all the time, using natural things like sheep, goats, coins, sons, oil and bread to describe spiritual truths. It helps the message stick when the natural is tied to the spiritual. Naturally we just came off a season of indulgence and now we are wanting to return to being fit. I believe the same is true in the spirit, we have been in a long winter season of lethargy, grief, loss, loneliness, and all the symptoms that come with a desert time, but we have entered a new day, a new year, a new way of doing life. To fully embrace the new we must leave behind the old. The days are behind us but it is the memories of the old we bring with us and it hinders our ability to see the new. We must repent of brining old memories into new realities, if those memories hinder what God is doing now.

Proverbs 2 says “When wisdom wins your heart and revelation breaks in, true pleasure enters your soul.” The new we are entering into is a time of wisdom and revelation that is going to bring such pleasure to us without negative after effects like sugar leaves behind. Wisdom and revelation are going to infect us in a way that causes our faces to shine, our spirits to soar, our hearts to love again. Wisdom is the new we need as a body. Wisdom is superior even to gold and silver, precious jewels and stones. Here is the call coming from wisdom at the door of this new year “Follow those who follow wisdom and stay on the right path. For all my godly lovers will enjoy life to the fullest and will inherit their destinies.” (Proverbs 2:20-21) I pray this year is a year of wisdom and revelation for the benefits of these two are beautiful.