A friend remarked at the beginning of the week that she had taken down all the Christmas decorations already, because by the time the holiday is over she just wants to clean her house and be rid of the clutter. I feel the same way, only not about the tree and the ornaments. For months I have had the thought that my life was pressing in, getting smaller and more chaotic, and I seem to be constantly busy, even though I am accomplishing less. It’s the kind of sense that can run along underneath everything else, just a faint hum in the background that you can ignore most of the time, until you lay down at the end of the day, or sit still for a minute, and there it is– like the warning light on your dashboard that you really have to pay attention to eventually.
We sit around the dinner table on the first day of the year, as we always do, and share our hearts over dessert and coffee. Usually it’s one of the pastor-dads that sets the theme– something provocative like “How have you seen God working in your life over the past year?” and “What are some of your goals for the coming year?” It is a way to celebrate and connect as an extended family, a well-loved tradition that stirs up both laughter and tears in the sharing. As we listen around the room to young adults reaching naturally into the next big thing, maybe I envy (just a little) that stage of life when goals and plans are more like stepping stones. But I see their hearts to hear God’s voice and to seek the plans He has for them, and see how that is what will last, long after they pass these milestones of rings and dates and diplomas.
So I share too about the hopes for the coming year, but inside there is still the insistent knocking that I can’t put into words yet, and I know it will take time to resolve and find a direction to go. No big changes in store, no visible major goals to reach, and yet sometimes the best goals are more internal than external, and sometimes the ways the spirit grows are more life-changing in the long run. It could be that the biggest question at the start of a New Year is What does God have in store for me, and am I prepared to walk through that door when it opens? Is my heart in the right place to even recognize His leading, out of the myriad of voices in this world? These kinds of answers only come in the quiet spaces, and I can hear Him knocking at the door.
So here at the beginning of a New Year, I will set to cleaning out the piled up places in closets and lists and thoughts. I will create uncluttered margin in life… to read the unexpected… to focus… to think, now that the busy-ness of the holiday season is stilled. Make time to listen to God’s priorities for me in the next twelve months. And I will not be quick to fill in the lines of my new calendar with projects and plans and other people’s ideas for my time. Because the Church-planter said “…I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is your true and proper worship.” (Romans 12:1) I know I will live my best this year if I live in worship; we are always at our best when we are responding to the One who offered Himself as a sacrifice for us.
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“Oh what amazing love–
We need Your cleansing flood;
Jesus I come, Jesus I come.
In every broken place,
You are my righteousness;
Jesus I come, Jesus I come.
Thank You, Jesus;
Just as I am I come.
Hallelujah,
Oh what amazing love.”
(Jesus I Come, Elevation Worship)
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“I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” (Philippians 1:20)