Accelerating into the New Year

Usually, at the end of the year, I would take some time away from routines to pray for a word or a Bible Verse for the coming year. However, it has been a challenging and busy period during which I forgot to step away and pray for it.

I was showering one day, when two words air-dropped into my consciousness: “whirlwind” and “acceleration”. Then it hit me that I forgot to pray about my “theme” of the year 2026! In His grace, He has given me these two words… has He? Doubts quickly seeped in and choked my faith. End of 2025 indeed felt like a whirlwind, but acceleration… It could be another inward acceleration. I had the same word for 2022, the vision of multiplication and acceleration. But in 2022, nothing much happened outwardly. Yet I know God had been doing a lot of internal healing in me since that year.

I wasn’t expecting much because I truly understand the first part of Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick”. There are many things I have been praying for years, a few for decades. Each year, I pray, and it comes and goes, and those things remain unfulfilled. So I have learned to taper my expectations so that I wouldn’t be so disappointed. Those unanswered prayers made me wonder if I have even been hearing God all this while, wondering if I am foolish, wilful or plain prideful?

So I took the word “acceleration” with a pinch of salt. Then, I kept seeing the word everywhere, including a prophetic word about “swift shift”.

And then the acceleration began. Things had been moving really fast, even though it’s only 7-8 days into 2026. January is going to be a whirlwind. And, my husband and I had this one prayer request every year for the past 10 years. I decided to let go and not include that as my prayer request this year, and guess what, we got our prayer answered this week! And the timing was in a nick of time that tested our faith. I almost settled for less than ideal because of time pressure. And when we decided to walk away, I sighed to myself, “another false hope”. In my lost hope, God provided. It still stretched our faith to accept, but the fulfilment of it gave me hope for this new year that God answers my desires too.

This experience reminded me of the second part of Proverbs 13:12, “But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.” And also reminded me of Anna, who prayed and waited many years in the Jerusalem Temple for the Messiah. I didn’t pray as long as Anna, but I want to encourage anybody reading this who has been praying for many years to keep pressing on for prayers to be answered.

Now there was one, Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity; and this woman was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming in that instant she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.

Luke 2:36–38 (NKJV)

The morning of the day I wrote this post, I read this question from “Names of God” by Ann Spangler:

“…that of an eagle or a great bird under whose wings the righteous can shelter. Compare this with Jesus’ more domestic image of a mother hen who longs to gather her chicks under her wings (Matt 23:37). How would your life be different if you were able to take shelter under the wings of God?“

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”

Matthew 23:37 (NKJV)

As I read this question, I felt like it was to hide under His wings to accelerate and fly on. I was also reminded of a post I wrote almost two years ago, “Be a circling eagle.”

To soar high and accelerate fast, hop on God, wait upon God, lean into Him. May you accelerate into 2026 with God too.

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