Several years ago, I started hearing about people choosing a “word of the year” to serve as their focal point, guiding idea, or inspiration for the year ahead. The idea appealed to me, but unlike most of the people I heard about, I knew I didn’t want to be the one to choose my word, so I went to God in prayer.
I asked the Lord whether it was okay for me to undertake this, and if so, if He would please give me a word for the year and walk me through the process of using it as my word of the year.
When you pray, you should expect an answer – whether it’s yes, no, or wait. So I started paying closer attention to what was going on around me, believing God would either somehow communicate a word to me, or His answer would be a no. Before long, I realized a particular theme was being echoed in various parts of my life. That’s when I knew I was being given my word: REST.
I learned a lot about REST that year. Not just the type of rest where you sit down or relax or give your body tie to recover, but also resting on God’s promises, resting in His Word, and finding spiritual, mental, and emotional rest.
Since then, I’ve had the words GRACE, BALANCE, LISTEN, FORWARD, and IGNORE as well. In each instance, I learned much – bout the word, about myself, about how God wanted me to apply it to my life, and how it shows up in His Word. There was one year He didn’t give me a word, even though I had asked for one. I stuck with what I was given the previous year.
For 2024, I didn’t ask for a word. I think I felt like I had enough going on. Nevertheless, the Lord gave me a word.
In December, within the span of a few weeks, the same Bible verse cropped up no less than half a dozen times. Around the third repetition, I started paying noticing. By the sixth, I understood I was having a kairos moment, and God was trying to get my attention. The verse was John 1:5: “And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (CSB).
I have battled chronic, low-level depression on my own (clinging to God like someone clinging to a lifeboat in the middle of an ocean tempest) for many years. I finally was able to enter a time of therapy, which helped immensely. Depression still tries to hover around the edges, but it doesn’t have the foothold it once did, thank God. At the worst point in my depression to date, the Lord led me to one verse in particular that was my lifeline: “For You, O Lord, light my lamp; the Lord my God illumines my darkness” (Psalm 18:28, NASB). So hearing John 1:5 being repeated in various contexts by various people naturally struck a deep chord.
Once I was paying attention, then I realized that He’d started giving me my word a few months prior to that. Someone had brought in a box of Scripture slips with a note that said, “Take one.” I thought, “Why not?” and plucked one at random. It was part of Micah 7:8, which says, “Though I live in darkness, the Lord is a light for me.” This slip has lived on my work desk ever since. Once I connected it with the occurrences of John 1:5 in December, I yielded. “Okay, God. I guess You’re giving me a word for 2024.”
This time, unlike times before, I felt led to start a notebook and write things down. Normally, I jot a few notes in my planner as I go. Thus far, I have created artwork, a word cloud, written out definitions, and tracked Bible verses pertaining to my word of the year: LIGHT. And at a point in late January, God started me on a side trail, talking about LAYERS. And for a few moments, I began to wonder if I’d missed it, or if God was giving me a secondary word or changing it. Once I asked Him about it, it made sense.
I’d been contemplating how Scripture has layers (like a cake, according to Priscilla Shirer, or if you prefer savory, maybe like a lasagna). If you give the text a first pass, surface read, you pick up the surface-level, most basic meaning of it. But invite Holy Spirit into your reading, and He’ll provide a whole new layer of insight. Let a good Bible teacher or preacher talk about that passage, and they will likely pull up another layer or two of meaning. Go back to the original Greek or Hebrew or do some parallel reading between translations or paraphrases, and you’ll probably find more layers. And so you end up going from plain pound cake (surface reading), to a decadent, multi-layer chocolate cake with sweetness and goodness oozing from everywhere.
I also think of layers in terms of archaeological exploration. Each layer requires careful sifting and study before the next layer can be breached and studied. The Bible can be this way, too.
The Holy Spirit pointed out to me that the process of sanctification is also layered. God pulls back the first layer and says, “We need to work on this over here.” You yield to the Spirit’s promptings and cooperate with Holy Spirit to work on that. About the time you think you’re getting a handle on that, God reaches down, pulls off another layer and says, “Okay, how about we start on this now?” And as we work through this process, as we work through these LAYERS, we are changed from glory to glory.
The Lord gave me the opportunity to speak to two of the churches I serve about layers, and then He gave me the opportunity to speak about them to the ecumenical women’s Bible study group that I’m a part of. I finally thought to ask Him, “Okay, Father. I thought You gave me LIGHT as my word of the year, and here we’re talking about layers. What do layers have to do with light?” The Holy Spirit said, “Jeanna, sometimes you have to pull back layers to let the light in.”
I have much to learn yet about LIGHT in 2024. We’re only two months in, starting on the third. I can’t wait to see what else God wants to show me about LIGHT this year.
If you’ve ever considered having a word of the year but haven’t moved forward with it, there’s no time like the present to start. Inviting God into the process gives the Holy Spirit room to show and reveal things to you that you wouldn’t have found on your own.
If you already have a word of the year and feel like sharing, I’d love to hear about it in the comments – what your word is and your journey with it thus far this year.