According to the date of the most recent post, it's been about 2.5 months since I last tried to say something that you might benefit from reading. It has felt that long too. There was some much needed recouping and regrouping to do after such a year.
Goodbye 2014. You won't be missed.
Instead, I'm going to look forward to this coming year. I won't let the struggles of the past become my identity of the present, knowing there are Stockholm Syndrome-like dangers of becoming the person who doesn't know how to live apart from the pain and the past. Telling the story of 2014, we hope, will spread God's name far and wide. But I don't want to live with my identity in our struggle but in our Savior (the Queen gets all the credit for boiling that down to its core). May it be true for all who encountered life-shaping struggles in this past year.
I look forward to fighting for the things that matter: belief in God's goodness and His sovereignty as really real and truly true, the transformation of my own heart before I seek it in others, the fidelity and mutuality of marriage to an amazing woman who devastates me, the hearts of kids who apparently are eating Miracle-Gro, conversations that are not mediated by a device, a neighborhood full of people who need Good News and a Friend to Sinners, a world full of brokenness that I can do something about, a church who deserves a better pastor, and a prayer life that enjoys the conversation more than the results of it.
I look forward to more time in God's Word without weaponizing it to make sure I get my way. Had that happen. It feels worse than a flu screen (also happened). Both are painful and awkward. I'm confident I've done that before. Somehow being on the receiving end reminds me all the more and makes me more acutely aware how precious the words are and how they can perform as a two-edged sword to do His work without my help or hijacking of His agenda.
Goodbye 2014. You won't be missed. Here's to 2015, whatever it holds. And to Him who holds it.
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