Do you ever feel like God brings a dream to your heart, gives you a desire, or speaks a special plan into your life, but then for whatever reason it just falls away? It’s like there’s so much excitement, so much certainty, but then it just kind of disintegrates. You’re left with a deflated balloon where a vision once existed, and just as the helium seeps from the Mylar, so too does the wind from your own sails. Hope is a wonderful thing, but can easily slip from your fingers. Sometimes the only action to bring it back is boldness. You have to claim what’s yours.

The other morning I was driving to work and praying. A few months before I had felt the Lord strongly speak a specific prayer word to me about my husband. The first week or two I had fervently prayed these words for my spouse. God had given it to me, I believed He would bring it to pass, and I followed through in obedience praying it for my partner. But I noticed this particular morning, after some time had passed without any payout on my deposit, I was questioning if I was praying the right thing.

What if this is just what I want?

God, I want your will for my husband.

And at that moment I felt that strong certainty again. God spoke to my heart as a reminder.

If I give it to you, it’s for a reason.

I knew then (once again) that God had placed this prayer on my heart for a reason, and with renewed passion I prayed it for my spouse. I didn’t know the future, but God did. My job was to move forward in what He placed on my heart.

The next day, driving and praying once again, my writing came to my mind. That morning I had reviewed my blog statistics for the past five years. Looking at it on a bar graph of traffic I noticed each successive year brought more readers to my website. It wasn’t a huge leap each year, but it was growth, little by little, like gradual stair steps.

Slow and steady wins the race, I thought.

Again God,

I spoke that to you too.

And He had. Six years prior He had given me a crazy notion to start writing, something I had never done before, and something I wasn’t very good at. Over the years I had experienced up and down emotions about it. It was time consuming and disappointing when it didn’t have the outcome I anticipated. It wasn’t where I wanted it to be, and it might never get there. I wasn’t famous, I still had unpublished books sitting on the shelf of my heart, and the way I thought it should go hadn’t quite happened.

But this I knew. God had put it on my heart. Strongly. So every time I got disheartened I reminded myself that God told me to do it. Now my job was to do it. Once again, I didn’t know the future, but God did. I couldn’t always see from Point A to Point B or know all the whys and hows, but I could go forward believing things would work out for my good.

So many times God can place something on your heart, but when the going gets tough, you give up. You doubt yourself, you don’t know if you heard God’s voice, or if you’re really doing His will, but it seems to me that’s us putting our future too much in our hands, when they should really be in His.

He wouldn’t have given it to you if He didn’t want you to move forward.

We don’t have to worry so much how we’ll get there, how it will work out, or if we’ll succeed. We just have to move forward, and He will take care of the rest. We just have to boldly claim our promises from God.

When fear comes and the devil tries to discourage you with doubt you say, “God, I know you placed this on my heart, and I know you wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t want this for me. So I’m walking forward.”

When the Lord told my husband and me to sell all our stuff and travel the country in an RV we didn’t know what all He wanted us to do with that. We knew it was a ministry, but we didn’t know the specifics. Heck, we still don’t, but we know God wanted us to go, so we went. Sometimes often times one step leads to another.

You may not see how He’ll do it.

You may not believe He can accomplish His purposes through you.

You may think you’ve messed everything all up!

But if He places something in your heart then your job is to move forward with that. Quiet your mind and ask Him what His desires are for your life. Take His answer, hold it tight, and boldly do it.

That’s how you claim God’s best for your life this year.