Word of the year 2025 - Clarity

From Christmas day 2024 there were a few days of intense fog. We were travelling back and forth visiting family, and often while driving through the fog, you couldn't see anything in front of you. As we drove down country roads we felt completely alone as we couldn't see anything that surrounded us. Familiar roads became eerily unfamiliar as the fog obscured anything recognisable. 

On Sunday 29th December the fog finally lifted. and it was glorious! As we drove to worship the world seemed lighter and brighter and the sun shone once more. I didn't realised how the fog had obscured everything until once more we were able to see the distant hills with the sun shining upon us. Those hills were so appealing that I simply wanted to go and climb them, sit at the top and look out at view that stretches for mile upon mile. 

Each year around this time, I take the opportunity to consider all the things that God has done in the year before and ask God to reveal to me a word I can carry into the new year. This year as I prayed I distinctively hear the word 'Clarity' 

The definition of the word is amazing: 

• The quality of being coherent and intelligible 
• The quality of being certain or definite
• The quality of transparency or purity
• The quality of being easy to see or hear, sharpness of image or sound. 

As I considered this word I felt God draw me back to my experience of the fog and the joy when clarity was restored. 

I also felt God tell me that this word was one that went beyond me and was a word for the wider church. There are places in the natural and the spiritual that seem to be engulfed by fog. Familiar places are feeling unfamiliar because of the lack of vision. However in the year 2025, things will become clear again once more, and there will be a real clarity for God's people. 

As I had felt drawn to the hills to seek a lookout to view further surroundings and to see the views clearly for miles around, there is a similar call to lift our eyes and see with clarity what God is doing. 

As I wait to see what the word clarity might mean in my own life, and within the Church, I am reminded of psalm 121... A psalm of Ascents! 

I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip - 

He who watches over you will not slumber, 

Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you

The Lord is your shade at your right hand;

The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. 

The Lord will keep you from all harm he will watch over your life;

The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.