Its early in the morning, middle of February 2019, and as I often do I am looking back. Looking back at what was. Looking back at the year behind me. Looking back and thinking. Looking back and wondering. What was last year? What did I accomplish? What happened? Did I have goals that I fell short of? Did I do what I wanted?
Often a new year is a chance to resolve for change. To make this year, or next year, better than last year. A chance to redeem yourself, your hopes, your dreams. It’s a marker on a calendar that means change. Looking forward to what will I be, what will I do, what do I want, I have to look back at what was. It's sometimes a depressing endeavor. Thinking of wasted times, wasted dreams, wasted money, wasted moments, wasted longings. Yet, I know as a Christian that I am to count all as loss. That “when this life is done and past, only what's done for Christ will last.” I know that that is truer than anything and yet, I find the human side, the flesh, wrestles against what the spirit wants and knows. The flesh desires to know, “I've accomplished . . .” the flesh wants to say, “see what I have done!” The flesh is at war with the heart. The mind is at war with the spirit. The downtimes are at war with the good. The hope is at war with despair.
As I look back at 2018 I don't see with my spirit, but with my eyes and my mind, and with, “what I think others think,” and especially what I think others think of me. It is hard to look with the Spirit anywhere but now. The Spirit brings a hope for tomorrow and a redeeming grace to yesterday. Knowing that is comfort, but knowing that doesn't change what I see or what I've experienced. It is an awkward existence living presently as both sinner and saint, as “in this world, but not of it.” It is easy to join the Apostle Paul and declare, “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain;” but O how tragic when push comes to shove and one must live it. When one takes up their cross to follow Jesus and finds loneliness, difficulties, hardships and pain. The Via De La Rosa is a rough road. It is filled with potholes, and snares, and sneers and bickering crowds. That rugged cross is nothing compared to that rugged road to Calvary.
In my last year my knowing, my believing, my living and my doing were not a beautiful symphony but more like a chaotic rap and tune that is beautiful in is own right. Poetry to beat, but not what one wishes to join and play because there isn't the elegance and nuance and glamour in the rap that there is in symphony or the classics. The status and symbol is not as sought after of the music that is rap. Rap is rough and rugged. It is thuggish and brutal. It is a street fight. A war of words and harmony and rhythm in street clothes and not tuxedos and ball gowns. Rap doesn't naturally fit with the symphony. How easy for a gowned violinist to join a rap and be welcomed and encouraged and celebrated, but when the young MC waltzes into a ballroom and begins to conduct their life’s work the crowd shuffles in their seat, half worried, half ready to bail, and seemingly drawn into the edges. Like watching a car wreck or driving by the broken down car on the side of the freeway. They may muse, “Should I stop? Should I gaze? Should I help?” No, they too often reply to themselves as they slow to watch taking a mental picture that this is what life is like outside of their comfort and community.
So to my year, and years past are more like the rapper who at times composes than the violinist who joins the revelry. It's dirty. It's dark. It's difficult. I've been told I'm a modern day Job. Or a Jeremiah who labored in ministry for 40 years of utter failure. I'm reminded often by others of the passage in Jeremiah, “For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord. Plans for good and not for evil. To give you a future and a hope.” Amen I say. Yes, I'll joyfully accept that part, but I'm half amused and half concerned by the context that is often left out of that famous promise of the Almighty through the voice and writing of the Prophet. Look at what the Lord Says: 4 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” 8 Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. 9 They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the LORD.
10 This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity.[b] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.
Look at that promise of God, “Build houses . . . Settle down . . . Marry . . . Have your children Marry . . . Increase in number . . .[WHEN 70 YEARS OF EXILE HAVE PASSED] I WILL BRING YOU BACK , For I know the plans I have for you . . .”
So here I sit reclined at 4 in the morning sipping on coffee, struggling with pain and wondering if my year was a waste. In my flesh I long for what was. Like the exiles in Jeremiah I long to go home! I long to go to what was good and wonderful. To work I knew and know. To the things that were comfortable and to where it was easy to conform and find contentment and yet the promise of good spoken over me and my family so often is to find contentment where I am. To find my future and my hope in what is, not what was while not knowing what will be. As the flesh easily gets lost in the drama and easily is distracted and disturbed by what is, my spirit pauses to look. My Spirit sees, my Spirit hopes in the future, and it is good to my soul.
With my spirit I see children, and a grandchild, and a wife who have seen me suffer and smile. Live and laugh. Not force faith upon them but live by faith. Always ready to share a word of encouragement or an example. My Spirit knows that because in years past, “I hid thy word in my heart" that my life had been less sin filled, and that when “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" my spirit declares the truth of Gods word to my children and my children's children. Even in hospital beds and Dr’s offices “thy word" is on my lips and the praises of my mouth come forth because my will is more conformed to the will of him that is greater in me than he that is in the world.
With my Spirit I look back and see what the eyes can't. I look back and see what the mind cannot comprehend. I look back and I see words written and shared. Spoken and recorded. I see my Grammy award, not for composing a renowned rendition or a glorious praise, but a sometimes hideous melody of life. A melody that changes and beats, and boxes, and hips and hops through a treacherous and dangerous path. A path I did not chose, but never the less I have undertaken and it's led me to today where I look back with my eyes, my mind, my heart, my soul; and my Spirit looks and says, “IT IS GOOD!”
