My One Word for 2017

Hello, y'all! I hope you guys had an amazing New Year's Eve and that the year has started out well for y'all. This year, instead of writing resolutions, I decided to buy Lara Casey's PowerSheets, so for the new year, I am doing PowerSheets {an intentional goal planner} and I {well, actually God} chose one word as a theme for the year. Today, I wanted to talk to you guys about my one word for 2017.

All throughout 2016 {especially the last 3-4 months} God has continued to show me more and more of His grace. I, like many others out there, struggle with perfection. {You can read more about that here}. I wrote this in my journal at the beginning of December:

"I am really good at putting on the mask of perfection, mainly because I want to be. I not only want others to think that I am perfect, but I want to be perfect as well. But perfection is unattainable and not practical."

God has been teaching me about His unfailing and immeasurable grace. That I don't have to be perfect because His great grace is mine as His child. It has been a journey, and I'm not even done yet. I don't know that I ever will be done exploring God's grace because it is that amazing. 

Naturally, after all of this with grace, I was tempted to make grace my word for 2017. But, at the same time, I still wanted God to reveal a word to me. Because no matter how good I think a word may be, God's words are always best. Last year, my God-chosen word was uncomfortable {you can read more on that subject here.} And it was great, and quite uncomfortable.

So, I went into each devotional and goal setting time with God kind of dwelling on grace, yet at the same time seeking God's direction. On December 28th, as I was reading my One Word devotions on YouVersion Bible app, I was going through the questions and God spoke deep into my heart. He said:

"I want you to know My power, to know My love. I am always faithful and I am always gracious."

And in that moment I wrote this in my journal:

"Faith to dare to believe that I am His, that He's got me, that I can overcome through Him"

And I don't even know how I came up with it, because I didn't. It was all the Spirit. And I wondered if faithful should be my word. I spent over half an hour looking up faithful in the dictionary, thesaurus, and in the back of my Bible. 

Honestly, it felt risky, and it still does. But that's okay because with God, risky is good. Risky requires faith.

Some of the meanings and synonyms of faithful that stick out to me are:

• True to one's word, promises, vows, etc
• steady in allegiance or affection, loyal, constant
• reliable, trusted, or believed
• full of faith
• affectionate, devoted, enduring, genuine, honest, honorable, loving, obedient, resolute, sincere, steady, tried, true, trustworthy, truthful, unchanging, unswerving, unwavering.

This year, I not only want to experience God as faithful and believe that's who He is, but I also want to be faithful. I want to be sincere, full of faith, trustworthy, and devoted not only to God, but also the people He places in my life.

What is your one word for 2017? If you didn't choose one, what are your goals?

See where I link up here.