Maybe Next Year

Another Christmas season has come and gone, and another year has passed the same. Funny how time operates, isn’t it? Sometimes it seems a day will never get here soon enough. Other times it feels an hour may never end. Sooner or later it gets here, it concludes, and it is quickly forgotten as we are faced with a new day of fresh challenges.

As we open our new calendars and look forward, we have to wonder, how will we fill the days ahead? Or perhaps more accurately, how will we spend our thoughts of filling the upcoming months? Sometimes we plan and plan; only to have our schedule constantly adjusted. Aside from that annual check-up, you probably didn’t plan on those other trips to the hospital this past year. I can promise you that my wife and I didn’t plan on visiting the tire shop this morning, especially not during the holiday break. I guess we should have expected it, anticipated it, but we didn’t.

Much of life is this way. We have hopes, great intentions, and solid schedules, but must often audible just to meet the most pressing need, the crisis of the hour, the obstacle of the day. When I think back on 2013, I realize that there was much I didn’t get to. There were many endeavors I didn’t complete. Numerous other goals I forgot about. Last week was a sort of microcosm of the previous year. We tried to find balance and prioritize our time but still didn’t get it all completed. As we sat on our couch last night, we asked, “where did the time go?”

Sure we did a lot of fun stuff last week. We watched a couple Christmas movies, made cookies together, saw lots of extended family, started some new traditions and continued some others we began Christmases before, but we didn’t get to everything on our list. We didn’t have as much chill time as we would have liked. We didn’t watch all the Christmas classics like we had intended. We didn’t quite get to our scenic thousand-piece puzzle…but we did our best to make the most of our time together. And sometimes, that has to be enough.

I wish I had something profound to say. I’d love to write a phrase that would motivate you to accomplish a perfectly prioritized to-do-list in 2014, but I just don’t think that’s very realistic. What I desire to offer us is hope. Maybe we can all give ourselves a break. Perhaps we can find relief in releasing ourselves from the pressure of completing all the things we think we should be doing – the things we feel we must achieve. Maybe we can get a reprieve from the demands we sense from others and from our own critical voice, and hear from the God who holds time in His hands. Listen to how scripture describes time for the One who created it…

“Dear friends, don’t let this one thing escape you: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day (2 Peter 3:8)”

Through one of David’s psalms, God also reminds us that each of our days is foreknown to Him before we’ve even walked in one of them (Psalm 139:16). The truth is that we have all the time that we’re going have. While we are not privy to the exact number of days that will be, we can rest in knowing we are loved by the Sovereign King of the universe that knows fully and is in complete control. This should be a warm blanket of comfort to the soul. For while we are unaware of all that might be headed our way in the coming year, God is not. He will not be surprised, nor will He be unable to strengthen us and carry us through. Before I wrap this up, consider a rather convicting few verses from the Epistle of James.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” You don’t even know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be! For you are like smoke that appears for a little while, then vanishes. Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that (James 4:13-15).”

We should steward our time and resources well. It would be foolish to have no plans whatsoever, but we should be careful to not allow anything, even our meticulous well-intended planning, to master us. In fact, as James reminds us, there is a way of pushing our agenda so forcefully that we fail to acknowledge God’s providential care and our own temporal nature. Honestly, I’m quite familiar with that kind of tension. I pray I may continue to learn how to hold things more loosely and strive for the things that are Kingdom-focused and not so me-centered. May we wisely make plans and diligently work toward the goals the Lord has placed before us, but may we do so in complete submission, resting entirely in the One that brings all things to be in their good season (Ecclesiastes 3:11). I wasn’t so great at doing this in 2013, but with the Lord’s help, maybe next year. 

matt@nbchurch.info     Twitter: @FattMowler     Facebook: TheFattMowler