Nothing New Under the Sun
Well, we have turned the page on 2021 and begin our journey into 2022.
Many people have set their goals for the year and have begun to work on them.
Congratulations on embarking on a new and better you or striving to fulfill your destiny that God has planned for you!
If you take this approach, you might be in for another year of unfulfilled promises to yourself and unrealized accomplishments. This can lead to all types of depression, anxiety, and dare I say even shipwreck one’s faith.
While I think goals are good things and set a road marker for striving to accomplish tasks, they may not be as helpful as society would have us believe.
So, I would exhort you to examine your walk with the Lord before all else.
How can I do that?
I believe that will vary from person to person. For me, I have journals and writings that I have kept from the time I was a teenager until the present day, so I take a stroll down memory lane to remember what I forgot about how I once thought.
In 2015 I wrote:
“In what ways would you say it is worth it right now to follow Jesus?”
Answer:
“My salvation, but more importantly; the salvation of my family and future generations.”
My response today to my past self.
“It sounds like you want to follow Jesus for what He can do for you instead of for who He is. I would suggest you gain a better understanding of who Christ is and it isn’t loving to follow someone because of things they give you. Would you love your wife or kids if they never did one thing for you? Of course, you would. I believe if you read through the scriptures carefully you will see that those in the Scriptures who followed Jesus did so because of who He is, not because of what He did. Your answer also implies that you have something to do with your salvation and that of others, I would suggest that salvation is an act of God by His grace and mercy. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing it is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:9. My suggestion to you would be to spend more time in the Word and not so much time in your head. “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out.” Proverb 25:2
Obviously, I have grown and matured in my understanding of the oracles of God, I have by no means arrived at robust understanding of these things, yet I am confident that I am no longer where I was and now have some meat in my diet, not just milk.
What I take out of this, is God has been so gracious, that He would allow me to walk in error for some time so that later I could see the foolishness of my thinking and praise Him even more for it.
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” 1 Corinthians 13:11
I don’t wish to dissuade you from making plans for the new year rather to encourage you to look at your walk first and keep in mind that God is ultimately in control of the outcome. “Come now, you who say “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears far a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15
May God extend His grace to all of us that we may be used for His glory, until He calls us home or Jesus returns. Come, Lord Jesus Come! Amen
