No doubt, I will always look back on 2008 as a tumultuous year full of incredible "ups" as well as a period of heavy "downs" and struggles along the way. And suddenly I'm looking 2009 in the face, wondering how likely it will be that this theme of extremes will continue.
One thing I must say with regard to 2008. This has been a year that God has used to add a new appreciation, or a new level of depth, to my understanding about who I am in Him -- and just as importantly, who I am without Him. Understanding with more clarity about my true nature and my real situation without Christ is always a fascinating if not frightening lesson.
On one hand, you would think it would be completely depressing and demotivating to realize how weak, self-serving, blind, and depraved we really are. And indeed, if we were to stop there, that would be a crushing and hopeless reality to live with. But fortunately, God reaches for us and pulls us to him, past that abysmal point. As we look to him, we learn how messed up we really are on our own, but in turn we also learn more about how extreme his love is for us. The more we realize how "unlovely" we are by nature, the more amazing it is that he made such a huge effort and sacrifice for us, while we are unlovely. And very quickly, our depressing tale of muck and depravity turns into an epic love story that rockets us past self pity and into the most motivating, real-life reason to live we could ever experience. In essence, God's love for us compels us to live for him.
It might sound odd to hear me say that this is the most important lesson I've been growing in throughout this year, because this isn't a new story. In fact, I learned it as a child. I've known it and lived it for 20 years. But just like other areas of our maturity, we often the learn the simple truths in layers. At first, they seem so simple that we too easily grasp the idea of the lesson and move on with a relatively shallow and basic application to our lives. Then we encounter situations in life that challenge that understanding and situations that cause us to test that lesson and we're forced to see if that "truth" will hold up under more weighty circumstances. As a result, we soon find ourselves completely floored by life-changing revelations of how this seemingly simple truth affects our real lives in yet another way we hadn't recognized.
So, this year, I feel blessed to have learned more about the depth of God's love and pursuit to rescue me. Yes, its strange, but I'm blessed to learn more about my failure to be "good" on my own, and that I never really was good on my own. To come face to face with this more and more results in a joy and purpose found nowhere else in the world, because I see that God designed me to be completed by him and him only. Without him I'm without purpose. By recognizing that this was God's plan from the beginning is to find the purpose of my life. And more than finding the purpose of my life.... to live it.
There is no greater truth to consider this season than the story you may have heard as a child, or as a teen, or even recently. Yes it is simple. But it is not to be considered once and then put on a shelf. It was never meant to be accepted at one point in life and the archived in memory as a moment. The sacrifice God made to rescue us from our dreadful condition is intended to grow in us, to affect us more and more each day for the rest of our lives to the point where its impact floors us and compels us to live out the purpose of our life with a fullness we find nowhere else.
This Christmas, I encourage you to consider what we're celebrating in its deepest application, realizing that even when we "know" the story, we probably have much more to learn how it applies. An earth shattering truth sitting dormant in our lives, waiting to be understood...to take root... to change us forever.
God bless you, particularly in a greater depth of understanding about how much we need him.
Kris
