By PASTOR KEVIN EWING THE defining moments of 2012 will be predicated on the people you decided to leave behind or bring along out of 2011. It will also be a reflection of whether you became bitter of better through the many challenges of 2011. God has already determined that 2012 will be defined and labeled as a year of excellent performance of which I am completely committed to this belief. In fact, it will be a direct result of the many problems and challenges during the course of 2011. They were literally transforming and conditioning your mind unknowingly to step into in 2012. During the course of 2011, I wrote extensively about difficulties, challenges, oppression and the like. My intent was to cement into your understanding that you were being conditioned and prepared to master what is to come. Unfortunately, for so many of us, we were so focused on who was doing what to us that we repeatedly failed to observe the changes that were subtly being made in us. Those changes could have only come through those challenges. For many of us, it was our perception of challenges that resulted in the choice to become bitter instead of better. As you would have noticed all across the world, we have seen the removal of many leaders including political and religious. Even in our work places, local church assemblies, homes and more so in relationships. These changes were not by accident or chance, but carefully calculated by God to move many of you into those now vacant places and connect you properly for your next assignment, come 2012. Thus your training and conditioning, which came through severe and unimaginable disappointments, failure, demotion, frustration and lack, were a necessity. All in a grand effort to change the way you think. You are being placed in position for the year 2012 to change the evil order you once oppressively lived under. You unknowingly evolved into the biblical Joseph, meaning you became so frustrated as to what happened to you that you could not even entertain the idea of doing it to others. You at the same time created an insatiable desire to establish change. This is the law of positive change due to negative circumstances. Now comes the shedding process as you enter 2012. Who will you bring along or leave behind? This is critical because in both cases it directly affects whether you will do things the same way or differently. As a warning, if you have not learned in 2011 then get ready to repeat it in 2012. The key is, you must be connected properly to the right people, places and environments because it is in these people, places and environments, when joined together, that you can achieve a phenomenon called synergy. Synergy is what the religious world calls a miracle. You see, because everything in God's creation was never designed to operate independent of itself, instead designed to join with something or someone to miraculously produce more or produce less. This understanding is quite clear, when God said that it was not good that the man should be alone (Genesis 2:18). God suggested that in order for man to create or to produce more he must connect or join with someone or something with like mind. King Solomon also understood the revelation of this phenomenon as expressed in the following statement" "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? If one prevails against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broke" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). My friend the key to success in 2012 is the mastering of synergy. Unfortunately, in order to master this you must have gone through a period of challenging circumstances, unknowingly, that were equipping you mentally to make better choices as to who and who not to connect with. As I have repeatedly said to you in 2011, you cannot decipher, recognise or understand what good is until you have experienced bad. The so called bad in 2011 was enabling you to recognise good in 2012. The law of synergy dictates that with the combining efforts of two or more people or things of like minds, the end result will produce more as a team than as individuals. On the other hand the law of antagonism dictates that the combined efforts of any team working against each other will produce less as an end result of their efforts than what they were doing as individuals. Just for a moment begin to reflect on the year 2011. Think about what you lost and what you gained. Now try to recall who you were connected to or with during the process of those losses and gains. At this point it should be clear to you who will accompany you in 2012 and who you need to leave behind in 2011. These laws are the filters for making those decisions. The year 2012 has embedded in it twelve months of unearthed treasures just for you. Connect with God and he will connect you with the right people, places and things to unveil those treasures laid up just for you. Heavenly father, it is my simple prayer for the beginning of 2012 that your divine favor will advance every intended destination for every reader of this article in the year 2012. I ask this of you father in the precious name of your son Jesus Christ. Amen. Welcome to the year 2012. * For comments and questions email ewingkevinewing@coralwave.com.