A New Year

It’s interesting to me to think about how time has all of us somewhat on the same page. Other than in extreme cases, pretty much everyone in the world knows that just a couple of days ago we entered a new year: 2011. And today, everyone on this side of the Date Line knows that it is Monday. I was thinking about that the other day, and I realized how peculiar it is. In some strange way, despite the limitless diversity and myriad expressions of human life scattered across the earth, somehow through this dimension called time, all of creation is bound together in a shared journey, hurtling through eternity. This life is such an amazing miracle, so full of twists and turns, ups and downs, and every sort of spectacular surprise that one could hope for. The possibilities are endless.

The Lord in his wisdom decided that the right approach to creation was to make a man in his image and place him in an environment of infinite options, and then to give him free will. From there what we have is the spectacle of human history. Over the generations leading up to the present, there has been nothing short of total pandemonium. Mankind was created to rule in dominion, but the Fall warped that into something unrecognizable. The Divine Order with which God laid the foundations of the earth was lost, and chaos entered the fabric of everything. What started as a destiny of righteous kingship in the sight of God has become a lust for dominance in the heart of man. Man has taken his call to individual greatness seriously, and king after king has arisen to take his place at the head of global strife. From national governments and armies to thinly veiled contempt at office Christmas parties, the seed of unclean ambition and self-exaltation runs through the whole of the human race.

God knows what he is doing.

Underneath all of the noise, there is a sound. If you listen very closely, straining all of your effort in the attempt to hear, you will hear the call. It is a call to come away, to unplug from the race for significance, and to plug back into the Source of all things. Jesus said, “Just as the Father has life in himself, he has given the Son to have life in himself.” It is scary to me, even as a believer who is serious about the things of God, how easy it is to get caught in the pull of the undertow of the spirit of the age. I often find myself stopping, turning to the Lord, and asking him to reveal where I have gone astray. I am moving along, following the path of God, and before I know it I drift off into some rabbit trail of life and lose track of where I am and where I was going. It’s not some gross sin usually. It’s usually not even a real sense that anything’s out of place at all. In fact, at these times, I often find that I have not a care in the world. And unless I had the habit of doing this regular self-assessment, I would never have suspected that anything was amiss. But then I stop and pray, “Lord, where have I fallen asleep? I ask you to reveal to me anywhere I am believing a lie. I know that I do not see with perfect clarity, and that there is still so much more that I have not yet realized. Please open my eyes, that I might see.” And before I know it, I am struck with some revelation of sin or complacency in my life that I was totally blind to moments before.

This life is full of options. It is like the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indiana must choose the goblet of Christ. He is in a temple searching for the Holy Grail, and he has finally found the room in which it is kept. The only problem is that it is hidden among a multitude of impostors. If he drinks from the right goblet, he will live forever. But if he drinks from the wrong goblet, he will immediately die. This is the exact picture for this life in the world. Jesus said, “If anyone would seek to save his life, he will lose it. But if anyone will lose their life for my sake, he will find it.” I think this is the main ingredient in the Christian life, and if we are not careful, we will miss it. “What is the most important Commandment, Master?”, the teacher of the law asked Jesus. “The first and greatest Commandment is this: Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your mind, with all of your soul, and with all of your strength. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” All over the world, people are darting here and there, always so busy in their endless pursuits. If only I can get to this benchmark… If only I can just achieve this position… If only… If only… And all the while they are zipping through life toward the final exam without any realization that they are in school. This is a picture of non-believers, but it is also a picture of the church. A vast majority of the church has no real sense of how to live in such a way as to pass the test. We are always running here and there looking for the next thing, the next teaching, the next blessing… Or we are striving to prove ourselves worthy to enter heaven through our good works, all the while starving to death on the inside and without any sense of our own security in God. And the unfortunate thing is that it seems like there is nobody to teach the church how to live rightly. All the while, the Lord is saying so softly, “Come away, come away… Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

This is a new year. This is a year to restore right priorities. This is a year to finally grow tired of running in your own way, of never reaching your destination and never finding rest. This is a year to realign all of your life with the Source of Life, and to again get in tune with the heart of God. I believe that we are coming back full circle in the creation story. The First Man was born into order and Fell into chaos and despair. The Second Man was born into chaos and Rose into glory and life. We end at the beginning, and it’s all coming to a grand finale. And this whole “time” thing has us all on the same bus heading toward our destination. Some 6 billion people, all rushing here and there, too busy to stop and think about it all. I believe that this is the year when we will begin to see a monumental shift  in things being set on a right foundation. Let’s stop, assess, and then come into alignment with the plumb line of intimacy and yieldedness to God, and let’s let him fashion our lives into what he sees in us, rather than our endless recreation of ourselves in an attempt to find something worthwhile. That whole thing will never get us to where we are trying to get and will only end up in despair. But when we stop our rat race and plug into Jesus, and allow him to speak over us who we really are,we find so quickly that we begin to come into the exact kind of life that we have always wanted. And we will find that we get a lot more done too. No more running here and there shooting in random directions hoping to hit something. Rather, we will find a level of focus and effectiveness that is possible in no other way. The Lord is going to do some amazing things this year in all of our lives, and I can’t wait to get into the boat with him (or out of the boat, I suppose.) God Bless You and thanks for walking with us. Peace!

Advertisement