“You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the Lord is with you.” 2 Chronicles 20:17

It is a common practice to seek the Lord’s face concerning a new year. What I sense God saying for 2019 is: Position yourself for what I am about to do. God wants us to be prepared for what He is about to do in and through our lives in 2019.

Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, faced a daunting challenge: a confederacy of three nations had come up against Judah. He knew that from the human point of view his army was no match against the multitude that had come up to fight them. So he summoned his people to pray for God’s intervention. He prayed: “O our God, will You not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.” (2 Chronicles 20:12). In response to his prayer, God spoke through a prophet giving them the strategy for the battle and assuring them of victory. God’s instruction to them was: “Position yourselves.”

Sometimes, in life, all we need to do is change our position in order for God to change our situation. The moon does not have light of its own. It does not produce light. All it does is to be rightly aligned with the sun and then it can reflect the light of the sun. You will need proper alignments in 2019. You may have to shift from alignments that don’t produce fruit, wine and oil. (Fruit has to do with character; wine has to do with joy while oil has to do with the anointing or God’s presence). You may need to withdraw from anything or any relationship that does not enhance these in your life.

God wants us to prepare ourselves for what He’s about to do. In Second Chronicles 27:6 we read about King Jotham: “So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the Lord his God.”

Some notable things about Jotham:

• He was one of the kings of Judah
• He was sandwiched between Uzziah and Ahaz, both of whom didn’t end well
• He became mighty, powerful, strong, successful etc
• We are told that the reason he succeeded, among so many kings that failed, was that he prepared his ways before the Lord his God.

If we are to succeed in 2019, then we must prepare our ways before the Lord.

Lessons from Jotham’s life.

1. He didn’t repeat the mistakes of Uzziah, his father. We don’t have to repeat the mistakes of the past years.
2. He didn’t allow the corruption of the society to influence him. It may get darker in the world around us but we must shine as lights. The darker the world around us the brighter should be our light.
3. The key thing was that he prepared his ways before the Lord.

The Message Bible renders this verse so beautifully: “Jotham’s strength was rooted in his steady and determined life of obedience to GOD.” I like the words “Steady” and “Determined”. If we maintain a steady and determined attitude in what we do this year then we shall succeed.

If I am steady and determined in:

• Studying the Bible
• My prayer life
• Serving the Lord
• My career
• Telling people about Jesus
• Church attendance
• Loving people and
• Obeying the Lord

Then I would have been properly positioned for what God wants to do in and through my life in 2019. When God has spoken, all we need to do is get our sails up and position our surfing board in the direction of the coming wave.