As 2016 dawned we all look for ways to make a change for the new year, to make a difference in not only our world but make changes from our last year.  There are so many challenges and ideas that are shared and if followed promise to make this year the best yet!  There are ways to save money, lose weight, clean house, organize, de-stress, read the bible and the list grows each year.  We so often accept these challenges and they may last a week, month or more.  Some may even last almost the whole year.  I am not condemning at all as these challenges and ideas that slowly start to waiver and get covered up to where they become less of a focus each day.  Life happens and we don’t have the control we think we do, our best intentions and ideas get lost and covered up. (OK, getting to far into something that should be a whole other blog… save that for another day).  One challenge that caught my attention was that we should find a word for 2016.  I heard words such as “praise”, “prayer”, “faith” and “death” ( better explain that one—letting the negatives in our life die, “death” to old ways).  I liked this challenge and I began trying to find a word for my 2016.  This should be easy.  Right?  Nope.  The Oxford English Dictionary has 171,476 full entries in use today, how hard is it to find a word that I want for 2016?  So just like other “resolutions or challenges”  this too fell by the wayside until a few days ago, God reminded me.  For the second time in a day I had commented on a post on Facebook with a simple word that came to my mind,  priceless.  It was maybe a few moments later that I heard that soft whisper, “this is your word for 2016”.   Priceless: having a value beyond any price (invaluable), costly because of rarity or quality (precious).  Extremely important or valuable.  Very funny.  I just love how God happens when we are still.  Claiming the word Priceless as my word led me to Luke 12:24 “Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.  O how much more value are you than the birds.” and 1 Peter 2:4 “As you come to him, the living Stone–rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him”.  God’s word overflows with how priceless we are to him.  This word chosen by God for me for this year has given me His promise once again that I am valuable to Him, I am precious to Him, I am priceless!  This word that was chosen by God for me for this year also commands me to find the value in the people around me and to find the value in  why we are here, to find the value in the moments that God gives us and to make them precious and priceless.  The world does not give us our value and if we let  our value come from anywhere other then God it can always be taken back.  The value God places on us is beyond any price and it is free, unconditional and is ours forever, it is priceless.

I challenge you to find your word given to you by God for this year.  Add your word in the comments below to share.  And remember you are priceless to me and more importantly to God.