There is a New Year Before Us

It has been said that “Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it.” If we apply this personally, we could say, “Those who fail to learn from their history will find themselves making the same mistakes all over again.”

I don’t know about you, but I’d like to not make those particular mistakes again. It’s not that I’m afraid of mistakes, but I’d sure like to learn from new ones, instead of repeating the old ones.

And so I try to reflect on the year behind me, and I try to learn from the year I’ve just finished, with the hope that I’ll actually be more mature, not just older, next year. If you’d like to join me, here are some questions you might reflect on.

Hint: this is a great time to get out your journal and write:

• What was your biggest triumph in the past year? What does God say about it? (Go ahead! Ask him!)

• What was your most costly mistake in the past year? What do you learn from it?

• What was the smartest decision you made during the year?

• What was the greatest lesson you learned during the year?

• If you could repeat one day of the last year, what day would that be, and why?

• If you could forever forget one day from last year, what day, and why?

• What one bit of Scripture best describes last year?

• What are you most happy about completing during the last year?

• Who are the three people that had the biggest impact on your life? Have you thanked them?

• Who are three people whose lives you impacted for good? Have you thanked God for them?

• What area of your life have you best taken responsibility for?

• What area of your life did you leave to someone else to be responsible for, and why?

• What was the most loving service you performed? What effect did you see from it?

• What was the biggest risk you took? How did that turn out? How could it have gone even better?

• What important relationship improved the most? What made the improvement?

• What important relationship took a hit last year? What can you learn from that?

• What compliment would you have liked to have received?

• What compliment would you like to have given last year? Can you give it now?

• What else do you need to say or do to be completely finished with the year?

• What would you like to say to your Father about last year or your last season? 

Father's Heart on Christmas Morning

I have to say that this year’s Christmas was something special.

I was sitting in my “Papa Chair” with generations of my family scattered around the house Christmas morning.

Over the past few decades, my family has grown up, moved out, married well and “gone forth and multiplied,” both by marriage and by birthing more of us. It had been a fair number of years since we’d all been able to celebrate Christmas together, and we were enjoying it immensely.

That morning would be an excellent illustration of the phrase, “tumultuous cacophony!” There was noise and energy everywhere, and it was beautiful! There was an immense quantity of laughter, from children and parents alike, with wrestling, story-telling, coffee-making, snack-sharing and eventually, distributing of gifts from under the tree to the locations where everyone might eventually settle down. If they ever would sit down.

For half a century and more, our tradition has been to begin with the youngest among us and then to take turns opening a gift apiece. If it is clothing, it must be worn. If it is food, it should be shared. There was no need to remind any one to give thanks, as thankfulness and laughter and joy flowed freely. Gifts were not particularly extravagant, but they were heart-felt, personal and loudly celebrated. They never did settle down, and it was good.

During the gift-opening, the tumultuous cacophony didn’t stop, didn’t slow down; it simply drifted vaguely in the direction of the living room and of the presents. Coffee cups were refilled continuously, glasses were regularly topped off, more snacks were shared, more photos were taken and shared, more stories told, more laughter, more rejoicing, more fun….

And suddenly it seemed like everything froze for a mere eternity-long instant, and my eyes were opened briefly. Suddenly I saw so much better.

In a moment, I saw that all the images and vain imaginations of what I had assumed about Heaven were oh-so-terribly inadequate. For a brief moment I saw through Father’s eyes, and I saw that this was at least part of what he’s been looking forward to about heaven: the family gathered around, loving being together, filled with love and joy and celebration for the family, including the head of the family.

And I realized that Father has a bigger family than I do, a much bigger family. But being omniscient, being omnipresent, he can completely rejoice with every single individual of his billions of sons and daughters as I was with the dozen or so rejoicing together in my noisy living room.

I got a quick peek of the Father’s family, full of joy and generosity and celebration, his own mighty heart rejoicing with them all, and for the first time perhaps, I think I might have begun to understand the Heavenly worship swirling around the throne that John tried so hard to describe in his Book of Revelation.

I think I might have caught a glance of “the joy that was before him” that carried the Son of God through the torment of the Cross and the grave. I think I might have glimpsed just a little bit of what God was looking forward to when he said to himself, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”

This was a celebration he was anticipating. My living room was the tiniest foretaste of what the psalmist described as, “You will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”

There were other insights, too; the experience was a little overwhelming. I glimpsed even tinier views of Father’s heart for those who were not in the house that morning, but that was not the lesson of the day. The morning’s lesson was about joy that the Father’s family brings his Almighty heart.

I saw from Father’s eyes for just a fraction of a second, a tiny stretch of eternity, and then reality crashed again on my shores and I was swept away by the joy of my own family, and of their joy of being together, of giving and receiving gifts, of celebration and laughter. The joy continued for a long, long time.

And it was good. It was very good.

Israel has Sinned. That’s Why They Cannot Stand

In my reading today, this stood out to me. I suspect that there’s a principle for me here. Maybe for your too.

Joshua 7: 11 “Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions. 12 That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies; they turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.”

I don’t know about you, but I was taught that sin is bad because it scares God off from me. “God cannot look upon sin,” they said, completely ignoring the fact that “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

As my attention was grabbed by Joshua 7, I realized (yet again) that the big deal is the effect that sin has on me, NOT the silly idea that sin has an effect on God.

To summarize: “Israel has sinned; That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies.” In other words, sin let failure into their lives, sin let their enemy beat them up, sin opened them up to what the enemy was doing, sin made them victims, not victors. 

God doesn’t like sin primarily because of the mess that it makes in our lives: it separates us from (in this example) victory, from our destiny as overcomers.

So when God says, “Be holy,” he’s not laying down the law. That’s largely about, “Position yourselves in the cross-hairs of my blessing!”