I’m not a huge journaler or anything. In fact, I can go months without writing a thing, but then write three times a day. I was pouring over all my old entries tonight, and between all the scribbles, smile faces, and doodles I find the recorded recesses of my mind from this past year…man…how fickle people can be. Especially me. But that just makes me praise God all the more for staying true!
They say hind sight is 20/20, and I’m going to have to say I agree. As we watch, talk with, and grow with people, I believe we can better see their growth and progression because we have an outside view. If you put a quarter up to your eye, it envelopes you perspective on everything around you. A perspective of a person standing next to you is sometimes better than your own. At times a journal can provide this second perspective.
When we face hardships of all kinds in this world, and we are bogged down in the middle of them it’s next to impossible to realize that the all encompassing quarter in front of our eye is simply a small coin being held in the hand of our maker. As I reflect upon this past year, my journal has told me that this has probably been the hardest I’ve faced so far. All the way from sickness, to falling behind in school, to taking up new responsibilities, to failing at responsibilities, or just plain despair, it’s been tough. But you know what other secrete the journal has revealed? It has recorded a skyrocketing growth. Throughout this year I’ve felt both SO far away from God, and closer than ever before. He’s let me wander, a stray lamb in the wilderness, so he can demonstrate is unfailing love, and kindness and bring be back home.
Luke 15: 8-10 “Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? "When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!' "In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
You know my favorite line in that verse? "In the same way, I tell you, there is joy IN the PRESENCE of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
It’s not saying the angels are joyful…it’s saying Abba himself is there, dancing over when we come back to him. And you know what else is amazing about that passage? That word joy can be translated into dancing!
Amazing.
Well…My journal told me that there was definitely some dancing going on in heaven this year. As I flipped through the old but vaguely familiar pages, the journal unlocked more secrets about my life this year, that had been forgotten.
Around the end of the summer I was struggling with faith and if their was any substance to it. Like I said before, hind sight is 20/20. My journal told me when the seed of doubt was first planted into my brain, and how soon after a weed of uncertainty consumed my thoughts. Soon following that came secretes of revelation, redemption, and rescue.
I know we’ve got a way to go on the advent calendar before reaching Epiphany, but as we approach it God as “made know” a few things to me through this reading of my journal:
God is super colossal. Our greatest strength doesn’t come close to his weakest. Go outside and look at the stars.
God has been where we walk. All throughout the bible God shows us he’s already been where we go. If you read Joshua, a couple days before they walk around Jericho, Joshua sees an “Angel” The bible tells us that the angel was coming from Jericho.
God will test us, but God is faithful. Sometimes when the storm is at its peak Jesus has been known to go to sleep in the boat, but you know what? I think it’d be interesting to see if we interviewed every single one of those men who were in the boat when Jesus slept, and see how unshakeable their faith is now.
God will lead us on.
And this is where the journal’s pages go blank. Empty life to be filled, wonders yet to be know, and our wildest imaginations to be exceeded…Lord I come, with great expectations…
Hallelujah, Amen.
-James
Saturday, December 09, 2006
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