Every year I ask the Lord for a Scripture that will be my theme for the New Year. Without fail, God has always impressed on me what should be my guiding Biblical verse or verses.

This process was introduced to me by a wonderful Christian man and for many years now it has been a strong inspiration to help me focus and also to encourage me.

One of the most dramatic experiences happened at the end of 2004 , when the Lord gave me Psalm 30:2, which states, “O Lord my God, I called to you for help and you healed me” (NIV translation). This He said was my theme verse for 2005. What made this puzzling at the time was I didn’t feel sick one bit.

In December of 2004 Maria and I moved in to a new home and I decided that I wanted to start exercising more in 2005. Our dog, a Jack Russell terrier, named Duke was going to be my walking companion. Well, as it turned out he didn’t want to walk, but run for his daily exercise. So naturally I was dragged along.

As I began to increase my running intensity I noticed an odd feeling in my chest, not pain mind you, just a strange feeling. I didn’t think much of it and in March went to my family doctor for an annual physical. When I just casually mentioned this odd feeling, he did an EKG and didn’t notice anything unusual. But, he said that since my family had a history of heart disease it was a good idea to get more extensive tests at a cardiologist’s office.

A couple of weeks later I am at the cardiologist getting a stress test, where eight minutes into the test, I mentioned that I had that funny feeling in my chest. It was like I said I am going to die, because immediately the technicians stopped the test, called in the doctor, who informed me that something was not right on the read out.

The cardiologist said that I probably had a blockage. He told me to stop exercising and the end of the following week he was going to do a procedure to go through my veins with a scope. If I had a blockage he would put a stent in to open up the artery.

I went in to the hospital the following week concerned, but sure there wasn’t a major issue. However, the cardiologist stopped the procedure 15 minutes into it and announced that I had four major blockages and was on the verge of a catastrophic heart attack. He said I shouldn’t leave the hospital and the next day I underwent emergency triple bypass surgery.

I eventually recovered to live a “normal life” and then reflected on just what happened. I was reminded by the Lord of the scripture He gave me for the year and how this obviously turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. (Pardon the pun).

In subsequent years He has spoken to me about my thoughts needing to be His thoughts; being an earnest, disciplined pray-er; and most recently for the past two years to expect the “new” coming into my life. As most of you know the most dramatic aspect of this was moving to Texas.

As any Christian should realize that as you spend time with God he impresses frequently through Scripture how we should be living our lives. But there are seasons where He places special emphasis on things that He wants just for you.

Now of course we can be disobedient to his clear leading and times when I have been that, He has said the theme verses for the following year won’t change. Simply put, we will do this again until I begin to act on what He has asked me to do.

So my challenge for all of us is to ask him at this time of year for a theme verse for 2019. It will bless you, encourage you, provoke you, and hopefully make you more like Jesus. Who knows, it might even produce a miracle and wouldn’t that be the best Christmas present of all.