It is that time of the year again, time to resolutely declare change in our lives: New Year's resolutions. I was going to say that I am not one who partakes in such cliche holiday rituals, but I confess that every year, even if only internally, I dream of doing all the things that I have put off the previous years: get in shape, learn Spanish, read a hundred books, write a book, etc. I am fascinated with change because I'm not happy with who I am. This is not a bad fascination but I wish it would move beyond just desire and become a reality. Just like the multitude who make resolutions, I also fail to see them through. This bears evidence that change, real change, is rather difficult. Yet something deep within begs us to push towards a better us. I think this longing is God-ordained, a desire to return to a full God-image bearing state, a return to paradise. This year I am not going at this sheepishly but full-heartedly and, I hope, not alone.
There is this book called The War of Art that names the enemy of our creative process as resistance. The author, Steven Pressfield, says that when we feel the greatest resistance to a goal, we should view this goal as the greatest thing we can do. The greater the difficulty, the greater the reward. Out of our struggles and sometimes even defeats, we find strength and hopefully victory.
This blog has been such a blessing for me, fostering a love for writing, but it also serves as an area of severe resistence. I must write, and I hope that maybe I may write something beautiful and meaningful. You too must (and I believe will) do something great. Find your desire and name the enemy of resistance. My resolution is to commit to this blog, to this strange act of communication, and to you my reader. This year I will write three blogs every week. They will range in length, subject-matter, and depth. I am very excited and also very scared to make this resolution public, because now I am accountable. Will you join me and make an audacious goal for 2011; make it public and pray for strength and perseverance?
I sure hope so.
Showing posts with label New Year. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Year. Show all posts
Monday, January 3, 2011
Friday, December 31, 2010
Goodbye 2010
All this week I have been dwelling on the good of 2010. What this seems to imply is an ignorance of the bad, but that is not the case. There is this ancient story about a group of brothers who sell their brother into slavery and tell their father he is dead. While captive in a far off land, this enslaved brother rises to become one of the most important leaders in the Kingdom, saving the people from famine. Unknowing he was even still alive, his family comes to his land in search of food. The brother seeks out his brothers and is eventually able to forgive them. He sums up the years in between their betrayal and their reconciliation in these words: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good..." Ours is a redemptive God able to take our broken lives and not just fix them but use that very brokenness for good. So with this in mind I say goodbye to 2010 and pray for the courage to see the bad of this past year as the means to something altogether better.
May the God of Joseph, the God of Jacob, the God of us all grant us the courage to hope for redemption, to hope for something better and to trust that He will take each failure, each pain, and every tear and make something beautiful. Peace be with you in 2011.
May the God of Joseph, the God of Jacob, the God of us all grant us the courage to hope for redemption, to hope for something better and to trust that He will take each failure, each pain, and every tear and make something beautiful. Peace be with you in 2011.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Hopeful Remembrance
"I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago." Psalm 77:11
Now that the New Year is upon us, our minds often drift in opposite directions, both backwards as we reflect upon the past year and forward as we anticipate what 2010 may have in store. It is a time to remember and a time to hope. Yet for some it has become a time to regret and a time to fear. Instead of relishing the highlights of the past 365 days, some often dwell on the mistakes and remember the things we wish we would forget. With the burdens of 2009 in tow, we wonder why 2010 would be any different. As each year passes, we have become jaded; forget half-full, the glass is empty. If we view our lives as a story, they have turned from comedy to tragedy. What ever happened to the happily ever after? As we look to 2010, we wonder if it might be just a little better, a little brighter. Yet for some, they see no reason to hope and that is because they have forgotten how to remember.
Now I'm not saying we forget the bad, because that too is important. We are not to pretend the glass is full when it is most certainly not. What I am saying, is that we remember the whole story, not just incidents. This takes time, humility, and honesty. Time and again the scriptures, even God Himself, beckons us to remember. This may seem like an odd command in our results-driven culture. "Why waste time in contemplation while my to-do list only gets longer?" I do not pretend to know the depth of God's intentions, but I do believe He has given us a reason to look back: so that we can look forward.
I, like I imagine so many of you, have experienced both bad and good times in 2009. This was an exceptionally difficult and full filling year for me. I preached a funeral on my twenty-fifth birthday, I moved fourteen hours away from my home, family, friends, and church, and my wife lost two grandparents. It was a hard year. But many wonderful things happened as well. I graduated college (finally) with honors, I was able to find a great job within days of moving to Colorado, I have become closer with Michala's family, I have found a wonderful community of faith in Adullam, and best of all I witnessed the birth of my daughter. Truly, the Lord gives and He takes away. Yet to truly understand 2009, I need to remember 1984-2008. 2009 only makes sense when I realize it is simply one chapter in a rather long book.
Some of you are aware of my story and others less so. But my story is yours. I made a lot mistakes, hurt a lot of people. Drugs and alcohol became my gods among many other vices. I often found myself in a lie, a daze, depression, and even jail. At age 21, I had no reason to hope for a better future, I was utterly and hopelessly lost. Yet unexplainably, God remembered me. He looked beyond my past and saw Calvary. He saw more than my sin and He gave me a future and a hope. In the blink of an eye my life changed dramatically. As the old hymn goes, "I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see." People who know me now, are astonished at my past and those who knew me then are equally astonished. God is indeed a redemptive God. My life is simply one of countless testimonies of this redemption.
In the four years since that redemption, God has proven not to be done with me yet. I'm sober, graduated, married, employed, and hopeful. Life is indeed good. But sometimes, life seems even harder on this side. With these gifts comes responsibilities. And my great fear is that I will fail, that that selfish drunkard will take back over. I fear that my baby will not know a godly daddy. That my wife will wonder what she ever saw in me and worst of all, that God too would wish to forget me. It is when this fear takes hold that I most need to remember.
God pleads for the Israelites to remember His deeds. That they were slaves and He freed them. That they were lost in the wilderness and He brought them home. That they were hungry and He fed them. And their story is our story. Remember what the Lord has done. You were drunk and he brought sobriety. You were lonely and brought community. You were lost and He found you. We remember these things because they are proof that God will always see us through. Even if we are in the midst of turmoil and see no way out, we must remember that it is not the end of the story. God remembers us and because of this remembrance we can hope. So that when life seems hopeless, we know better.
"We have survived you and I. Maybe that is at the heart of our remembering. After twenty years, forty years, sixty years or eighty, we have made it to this year, this day. We needn't have made it. There were times we never thought we would and nearly didn't. There were times we almost hoped we wouldn't, were ready to give the whole thing up....Faint of heart as we are, a love beyond our power to love has kept our hearts alive." -Frederick Buechner
We can look forward in 2010, because we have looked back and remembered what the Lord has done. Hope and remembrance are interwoven, working together. This is the beauty of the recent Advent season, we remember the Lord's coming at Christmas and hope for His final coming. So, may you take the time to look back on your story and remember both the good and bad so that we may dream all the more fully about the happily ever after.
Now that the New Year is upon us, our minds often drift in opposite directions, both backwards as we reflect upon the past year and forward as we anticipate what 2010 may have in store. It is a time to remember and a time to hope. Yet for some it has become a time to regret and a time to fear. Instead of relishing the highlights of the past 365 days, some often dwell on the mistakes and remember the things we wish we would forget. With the burdens of 2009 in tow, we wonder why 2010 would be any different. As each year passes, we have become jaded; forget half-full, the glass is empty. If we view our lives as a story, they have turned from comedy to tragedy. What ever happened to the happily ever after? As we look to 2010, we wonder if it might be just a little better, a little brighter. Yet for some, they see no reason to hope and that is because they have forgotten how to remember.
Now I'm not saying we forget the bad, because that too is important. We are not to pretend the glass is full when it is most certainly not. What I am saying, is that we remember the whole story, not just incidents. This takes time, humility, and honesty. Time and again the scriptures, even God Himself, beckons us to remember. This may seem like an odd command in our results-driven culture. "Why waste time in contemplation while my to-do list only gets longer?" I do not pretend to know the depth of God's intentions, but I do believe He has given us a reason to look back: so that we can look forward.
I, like I imagine so many of you, have experienced both bad and good times in 2009. This was an exceptionally difficult and full filling year for me. I preached a funeral on my twenty-fifth birthday, I moved fourteen hours away from my home, family, friends, and church, and my wife lost two grandparents. It was a hard year. But many wonderful things happened as well. I graduated college (finally) with honors, I was able to find a great job within days of moving to Colorado, I have become closer with Michala's family, I have found a wonderful community of faith in Adullam, and best of all I witnessed the birth of my daughter. Truly, the Lord gives and He takes away. Yet to truly understand 2009, I need to remember 1984-2008. 2009 only makes sense when I realize it is simply one chapter in a rather long book.
Some of you are aware of my story and others less so. But my story is yours. I made a lot mistakes, hurt a lot of people. Drugs and alcohol became my gods among many other vices. I often found myself in a lie, a daze, depression, and even jail. At age 21, I had no reason to hope for a better future, I was utterly and hopelessly lost. Yet unexplainably, God remembered me. He looked beyond my past and saw Calvary. He saw more than my sin and He gave me a future and a hope. In the blink of an eye my life changed dramatically. As the old hymn goes, "I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see." People who know me now, are astonished at my past and those who knew me then are equally astonished. God is indeed a redemptive God. My life is simply one of countless testimonies of this redemption.
In the four years since that redemption, God has proven not to be done with me yet. I'm sober, graduated, married, employed, and hopeful. Life is indeed good. But sometimes, life seems even harder on this side. With these gifts comes responsibilities. And my great fear is that I will fail, that that selfish drunkard will take back over. I fear that my baby will not know a godly daddy. That my wife will wonder what she ever saw in me and worst of all, that God too would wish to forget me. It is when this fear takes hold that I most need to remember.
God pleads for the Israelites to remember His deeds. That they were slaves and He freed them. That they were lost in the wilderness and He brought them home. That they were hungry and He fed them. And their story is our story. Remember what the Lord has done. You were drunk and he brought sobriety. You were lonely and brought community. You were lost and He found you. We remember these things because they are proof that God will always see us through. Even if we are in the midst of turmoil and see no way out, we must remember that it is not the end of the story. God remembers us and because of this remembrance we can hope. So that when life seems hopeless, we know better.
"We have survived you and I. Maybe that is at the heart of our remembering. After twenty years, forty years, sixty years or eighty, we have made it to this year, this day. We needn't have made it. There were times we never thought we would and nearly didn't. There were times we almost hoped we wouldn't, were ready to give the whole thing up....Faint of heart as we are, a love beyond our power to love has kept our hearts alive." -Frederick Buechner
We can look forward in 2010, because we have looked back and remembered what the Lord has done. Hope and remembrance are interwoven, working together. This is the beauty of the recent Advent season, we remember the Lord's coming at Christmas and hope for His final coming. So, may you take the time to look back on your story and remember both the good and bad so that we may dream all the more fully about the happily ever after.
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