Setting Priorities for 2025 by Lisa Burkhardt Worley
Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. (Jeremiah 33:3, NIV)
What is your favorite food—one that you would hate to give up?
Mine is bread. I judge a restaurant by the bread it serves. Is it freshly baked? What kind of butter are they serving with it? Is the butter mixed with honey? Or is the accompaniment olive oil sprinkled with herbs? I love it all and often fill up on bread and can’t finish my meal. However, starting this Monday I will be giving up bread until the end of the month. It is a fast from something I love so that I can better hear God’s voice and His priorities for my life in 2025.
We may all have a plan for the New Year. We could have ideas about what we would like to accomplish; however, God’s priorities may not be on our radar. His thoughts and his ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). Using a sports term, the Lord often likes to throw a change-up. That is why it important to fast and pray at the start of the year, so we can understand the divine priorities carefully planned out for each of us. They may be surprising.
To help with the unveiling of our specific, God-designed initiatives, we can ask the following questions of the LORD:
- What are your priorities for my life?
- How can I better serve you?
- What are the burdens on your heart, and how can I help?
For God to set our 2025 agenda, we have to be open to His guidance and direction through fasting and uninterrupted dialogue with Him. It’s the most effective way to understand what our future holds. No doubt, I will miss hot bread for a few weeks, but it is worth it, considering the spiritual food and priorities I will receive from the Bread of Life.
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty (John 6:35).
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I will join you! I gave up (for the most part) bread over a year ago due to the gluten. However, it is almost just as easy to eat gluten free bread as long as there is lots of butter! I’m looking forward to hearing from the Lord in this season.