The Unavoidable Retrospective v.2006

I sit here in front of a blank page with that infernally irritating cursor blinking -- I wonder if modern writing is detrimentally affected by this constant reminder of our inability to perfectly articulate our thoughts -- slowness, thoughtfulness, ripening is not allowed. (See? Digression perhaps only for the sake of conquering the empty page).

If 2005 was the beginning of my life, 2006 was the realization that bloody knees, siblings, growing pains, tears, sickness, and death are what await for those who live. (Well, okay, not always siblings . . .) And of all of those, death is actually the most welcomed and the least frightening. I hope that my longing for heaven is purer and more understandable than I suspect it is. I want to be perfectly holy, I want to see my Savior face-to-face and to see Him as He is, I want to have my whole being consumed in the purest expressions of worship, adoration, and love. I don't want to trudge through this life, stumbling, backsliding, lukewarm and then cold, plagued by doubt and temptation, continually ashamed by my flesh. I want righteousness all in one fell swoop. As every biography of eminent saints I've read has made very clear, there is no way to holiness except through fire. I welcome the fire for what I know it brings and yet I shudder before it.

I have learned how easy it is to forget my sin and fall thoughtlessly into self-righteousness. It is this that makes me most ashamed of myself -- it seems the consummate sin, for it entails a complete forgetfulness of my complete depravity and an unaccountable blindness to God's righteousness.

I have learned how important it is to know my own neediness and to remain broken at the feet of Jesus and allow Him to work in me without self or pride getting in the way (not that it ever works that way -- ideally, though). I revel in my helplessness -- thanks be to God that none of it is my doing! I will never understand the draw of man-centered religion -- there is no hope to be had in mankind.

I look back over this year and am deeply ashamed of all the time I did not spend in the pursuit of God, all the time I devoted to the things of this world, all the time I spent thinking of myself and my own comfort. Both the things I have done and the things I have not done condemn me. I expected to do more for God, to have become more conformed to Christ, to have grown more in faith and love than I have. The naivete of a young Christian, I suppose -- but the only reason I did not attain these is that I let my flesh hinder me from running the race as I should have.

If it does nothing else, at least the coming of the new year spurs me to reflection, to repentance, and to a renewed desire to live for God, making Him and Him alone my focus.