For some people, 2018 did not go the way they had hoped it would. Plans fell through, friendships fell apart, and somethings just failed them. Every year has its ups and downs but for a lot of people, 2018 was a year of bondage rather than bond breaking.

If you are one of those people - 2018 does not, will not, and cannot define your 2019. If you allow each year to determine your new year you will always be stuck in this cycle of feeling like you're not going anywhere because odds are you aren't. Often times we define our future based off of our past but that isn't how it should be.

In Genesis 12 we begin the story of Abraham, at that point, he was still Abram. God tells Abram to leave everything he knows so that a new nation can be created. Abram does just that, except there's one issue - his nephew Lot decides to tag along. When I first read this I didn't see why that was an issue because if I have to leave everything surely God would be chill with me bringing along my nephew, but no. At the very start, in verse one, God says that Abram even had to leave his father's family - that included Lot.

For a while God still blessed Abram, but eventually, Abram realized that Lot was the reason nothing grand was happening as God had promised. Abram allowed something from his past to tag along into his new found freedom, but that isn't freedom at all.

One shackle is still a shackle.

Now you're thinking "well that's a person, my bondage is in my grades, my self-harm, my eating disorder, my anxiety." Those things are no different than Lot because they are Lot. If God has called you out of slavery you have to stop putting yourself back in it. Of course, you can't just tell your self-harm to leave you, you have to work on it but in Jesus, there is freedom from that. In Jesus, there is understanding that when you were brought from bondage you would be blessed.

Trials still come but there is a much sweeter ending when you are already walking on the path of grace.

Let 2019 be your year that you say your chains can't be attached to you anymore. Let it be the year every single piece of you is given to Jesus.

If the bond is already broken don't try to super glue it back together.