looking back, looking ahead

“But you will not leave in haste or go in flight; for the Lord will go before you.”
Isaiah 52:12

After reflecting on the past year I’ve seen where God was with me and allowed me to genuinely lean on him. I’ll not tire you with the specifics; our lives always seem more fanciful within our own myopic view, but I will say that when I think of 2006, I’m reminded of a simple image. I consider the purpose of a chair and how while you sit on it, you fully trust that it will uphold you. When I lean against the back of it, I feel secure. Though I twist and turn through various life circumstances, relationships, or struggles or whether I get up and stand behind it, or perhaps in front of it, it never seizes to be there waiting for me to return to it and its purpose is constant. God is not unlike this. He is there for me and has been there this past year.

“The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”
Zephaniah 3:17

It’s hard to believe that the creator of the universe has time to rejoice over me with singing. I really like this picture though. And I certainly enjoy it when people sing for me although I can’t recall all too many times when someone has. The oddity is that since being here, I’ve noticed I sing more freely. This is something I can’t explain, except that maybe it’s because the karaoke here is so profoundly horrific that I’m not as intimidated. But conceivably it reasons to stand as a simple sign of joy sneaking its way into my life. So to think that God is pleased with me and wants to sing over me, is a foreign concept but nonetheless delightful.
The growth that has occurred this year is mostly personal. I felt there were questions I longed to find answers to and they came eventually, growing in due season. I guess what I mean to say is that after reflecting; its clear there’s a lot that’s incomplete and consequently several more questions to ask. I can see where my world view is very much naïve and though there has been a good deal of self discovery (and there continues to be) I see my weakness in God and in my unmatured dreams. Perhaps the latter is due to lack of faith in Him, that in myself, or perchance the combination of the two.

“So do not fear, for I am with you; Do not be dismayed for I am your God I will strengthen you and I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

I habitually think I’m remembering the particulars of life as I go, but it’s not until I sit down and rest, leaning all my worries on something else, or Someone else and ponder through the highs and lows, struggles and gains, that I expand my perspective of where I’ve come from and where I’m heading. Overall as I look back at my life, if I look close enough, I can see among the greenery there are weeds. As I thought and prayed about the coming year, I become conscious again that it is a gift to have dreams and it is equally beneficial to see the barriers of life that have kept me from them. For me, I believe one major obstacle has been fear. Despite this as I run wildly into this New Year I feel a sense expectation. This is very much unlike me. I normally feel sad that another year is gone and we’re all getting older, but this year feels different. All that to say, I want to live and thrive, to not waste days, to be quick to fall in love with life, to trust that God goes before me, to be lost in the wonder that He is always with me, to not loose heart, to rely on His strength with an authentic reliance and to lean on Him as He upholds me.