2010.
As the clock clicked to zero at the First Night Festival in Charlotte last night, I looked up and wondered where Arthur C. Clarke's "Monolith" might be floating at that moment. I wondered what weirdness and blackness might be awaiting us all this new year. But as I watched my wife and daughter dancing and singing and enjoying the fireworks explode over head, I realized I was looking towards the wrong thing.
I've never really bought into this idea that, when a new year arrives, we somehow can leave the last year behind and all of sudden get a new reprieve in life, but only at this magical moment on the calendar. We make our resolutions during the eve of the new year, place them in a balloon - literally or figuratively, and we release them with the belief that making them will somehow make life changing differences for us in the new year. I can't speak for you but, at least for me, and the many people that I know, not much difference is made...except maybe for a few days or a few weeks into January. I've always wonder why, by the time a get half way into January most of my resolutions are still in the balloons but now on the floor, deflated. It can be rather frustrating. And messy. One can get rather irritated tripping over failed resolutions.
But maybe this year can be different. It's not that I think I will keep all my resolutions this year, it's that I have decided not to make resolutions at all! Seriously. If you don't make any, you don't break any, right? Works for me.
But before anyone thinks that I am failing as a human being in some way or being unspiritual, let me tell what I am doing.
I am going to take a more active role in writing my story.
Many years ago, before I was aware of this thing called "blogging" - and I'm not even sure it existed yet, I wrote a piece that I emailed around to a number of family and friends. It was about telling our stories to other people; about how, as Christians, we are to share with others what God has and is doing in our lives; it was about building relationships through listening to other people tell their stories; about creating environments so that stories can be shared; about helping and encouraging people so they can more easily develop their stories. That's the nutshell of it, and trust me, I was far more articulate in that emial than I am in this paragraph. I eventually developed it into a message as part of a broader series of messages where I took it further and talked about how we can take a part in the "development" of our life story, become a co-author, so-to-speak.
As much as I believe this, I haven't been a very active co-author and, as a result, I'm wondering what/who might have stepped into that role without me realizing it.
I read a book a few weeks ago that brought this all back to the forefront in my thinking, disturbing and challenging it. My thinking, that is. I usually take several weeks to read a book - I'm a slow reader and I read several books at once - but this book I read in two days. The book is "A Million Miles in a Thousands Years" by Donald Miller. Miller was writing about what I had been struggling to articulate over the years about this idea of our lives and story writing. He does a much better job of it!
Resolutions typically are statements of "I will do" or "I won't do" for the new year, or come about as a result of a specific situation that comes into our lives. Miller challenges us (maybe I should say God through Miller) to take a look at our lives (evaluation - not usually a fun thing to do) and see what needs to be rewritten - changed or corrected - and take a role in rewriting it, as you understand God leading you (the primary author of your life).
We all have patterns in our lives, the way we think, the way we behave, the way we go about living. It's almost as if we are on auto pilot - we don't think much about it, until a crises arises or we screw up or fail. Rewriting is to actively participate in changing those things that keep us repeating the old and failed patterns in our lives. Whether it be our attitudes, our finances, our sins that trip us up, our relationships, our church, and, certainly, our spiritual lives (our relationship with Christ), I believe God wants us to be involved in the process of change that is needed in our lives. Paul talks about the importance of testing our faith. I think he'd say that we need to be more active in writing our stories.
I don't know if any of this makes sense. It does to me, more now that ever before, in large part because of reading Miller's book. But I also think it's because of where I am in life that I have realized that my life, in many ways and in many areas, has become routine. I don't want to be routine. I don't want my relationship with Christ to continue the same way it has over the past years. I don't want my marriage or relationships with others to "plod" along as it has. I want more. God wants me to experience more.
And I think I would be safe to say that God wants the same for you, whether it be 2010 or not.
Grace and Peace
Special note: I have just started reading a book that is pretty funny and thought provoking. The author is Susan Isaacs and the book is: "Angry Conversations with God - A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir." The premise is this: she takes God to marriage counseling! This is worth reading!
As the clock clicked to zero at the First Night Festival in Charlotte last night, I looked up and wondered where Arthur C. Clarke's "Monolith" might be floating at that moment. I wondered what weirdness and blackness might be awaiting us all this new year. But as I watched my wife and daughter dancing and singing and enjoying the fireworks explode over head, I realized I was looking towards the wrong thing.
I've never really bought into this idea that, when a new year arrives, we somehow can leave the last year behind and all of sudden get a new reprieve in life, but only at this magical moment on the calendar. We make our resolutions during the eve of the new year, place them in a balloon - literally or figuratively, and we release them with the belief that making them will somehow make life changing differences for us in the new year. I can't speak for you but, at least for me, and the many people that I know, not much difference is made...except maybe for a few days or a few weeks into January. I've always wonder why, by the time a get half way into January most of my resolutions are still in the balloons but now on the floor, deflated. It can be rather frustrating. And messy. One can get rather irritated tripping over failed resolutions.
But maybe this year can be different. It's not that I think I will keep all my resolutions this year, it's that I have decided not to make resolutions at all! Seriously. If you don't make any, you don't break any, right? Works for me.
But before anyone thinks that I am failing as a human being in some way or being unspiritual, let me tell what I am doing.
I am going to take a more active role in writing my story.
Many years ago, before I was aware of this thing called "blogging" - and I'm not even sure it existed yet, I wrote a piece that I emailed around to a number of family and friends. It was about telling our stories to other people; about how, as Christians, we are to share with others what God has and is doing in our lives; it was about building relationships through listening to other people tell their stories; about creating environments so that stories can be shared; about helping and encouraging people so they can more easily develop their stories. That's the nutshell of it, and trust me, I was far more articulate in that emial than I am in this paragraph. I eventually developed it into a message as part of a broader series of messages where I took it further and talked about how we can take a part in the "development" of our life story, become a co-author, so-to-speak.
As much as I believe this, I haven't been a very active co-author and, as a result, I'm wondering what/who might have stepped into that role without me realizing it.
I read a book a few weeks ago that brought this all back to the forefront in my thinking, disturbing and challenging it. My thinking, that is. I usually take several weeks to read a book - I'm a slow reader and I read several books at once - but this book I read in two days. The book is "A Million Miles in a Thousands Years" by Donald Miller. Miller was writing about what I had been struggling to articulate over the years about this idea of our lives and story writing. He does a much better job of it!
Resolutions typically are statements of "I will do" or "I won't do" for the new year, or come about as a result of a specific situation that comes into our lives. Miller challenges us (maybe I should say God through Miller) to take a look at our lives (evaluation - not usually a fun thing to do) and see what needs to be rewritten - changed or corrected - and take a role in rewriting it, as you understand God leading you (the primary author of your life).
We all have patterns in our lives, the way we think, the way we behave, the way we go about living. It's almost as if we are on auto pilot - we don't think much about it, until a crises arises or we screw up or fail. Rewriting is to actively participate in changing those things that keep us repeating the old and failed patterns in our lives. Whether it be our attitudes, our finances, our sins that trip us up, our relationships, our church, and, certainly, our spiritual lives (our relationship with Christ), I believe God wants us to be involved in the process of change that is needed in our lives. Paul talks about the importance of testing our faith. I think he'd say that we need to be more active in writing our stories.
I don't know if any of this makes sense. It does to me, more now that ever before, in large part because of reading Miller's book. But I also think it's because of where I am in life that I have realized that my life, in many ways and in many areas, has become routine. I don't want to be routine. I don't want my relationship with Christ to continue the same way it has over the past years. I don't want my marriage or relationships with others to "plod" along as it has. I want more. God wants me to experience more.
And I think I would be safe to say that God wants the same for you, whether it be 2010 or not.
Grace and Peace
Special note: I have just started reading a book that is pretty funny and thought provoking. The author is Susan Isaacs and the book is: "Angry Conversations with God - A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir." The premise is this: she takes God to marriage counseling! This is worth reading!
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