Deeper roots. That is the call of God for my 2011 spiritual focus.  God has taken me into a greater depth of understanding that I can and must believe Him. No matter what is going on around me, I can trust Him, His truth, His faithfulness, His grace that is truly sufficient for every need. He is who He says He is. He can do what He says He can do. I am who He says I am. I can do all things through Christ who is my strength. His word is alive and active in me.

Thinking on these things, as 2011 comes to a close and as God begins to form my focus for spiritual growth in 2012, I am drawn to my life goal passage anew: Philippians 3:8-10, in the Amplified version of scripture, which adds to my understanding of that blessed text.

“Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege, the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish, refuse, dregs, in order that I may gain Christ the Anointed One, And that I may actually be found and known as in Him, not having any self-achieved righteousness that can be called my own, based on my obedience to the Law’s demands—ritualistic uprightness and supposed right standing with God thus acquired, but possessing that genuine righteousness which comes through faith in Christ, the truly right standing with God, which comes from God by saving faith.

“For my determined purpose is that I may know Him, that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly, and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection, which it exerts over believers, and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed in spirit into His likeness, even to His death, in the hope that, if possible I may attain to the spiritual and moral resurrection that lifts me out from among the dead, even while in the body.”

It has been a challenging year for many of us. People have lost jobs, homes, loved ones. We have seen an adult child’s marriage dissolve, leaving us crushed in the quake of the cause of that break. Children struggle as never before. There are many life challenges that draw our attention and can leave us devastated. But this passages leaves this struggling one with hope in understanding that if all else is lost, as long as we come through it with a greater understanding of God and deeper relationship with Him, we have won.

We were never promised a rose garden in this life. In fact, Jesus said that we will have trouble in this life, but if we seek God first, He will meet us at our need. Every good and perfect gift in life comes from the Father. And for every difficulty that comes to us, He is able to supply our need to get through it and come out stronger for it.

I pray that your year was filled with more roses than thorns. But more than that, I pray that as you look back on your life in 2011, that you see more of Him and an ever deepening relationship with Him. He is the Rose that makes the thorns worth the trouble.