The Year to Trust

There is something about the changing of the guard, moving from one year into the next, that demands our soul’s attention. There have been years that I have wept at the curtain’s close, mourning the end to such joy. Then others where I have barely made it through by the skin of my teeth, crazy grateful for the clean slate a new year brings.

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is a life not worth living.”

As I glance back in the rear view mirror, I lament the places over this last year where I have missed the mark, stumbled over my own ego, used more muscle than grace, and ignored God’s tender nudges.

There is nothing harder to accept than our own fragility in body and spirit. My Achilles heel remains my audacious belief that I actually have any control over my life. From one breath to the next, the only thing I know for sure is that something larger than myself is at work, a providential plan that for a modicum of time I play a small part. Unfortunately, we humans have a blind spot when it comes to the imperfections in ourselves and in our world. When did we start believing that we were on the same playing field as God?

We are like bulls ramming our heads into the fence post, convinced we can muscle our way through, maybe even avoid or escape the darkness and hurt inherent to the human journey—-and then take what we believe we deserve. But secretly, we are governed, nearly paralyzed, by a fear of the unknown and our own mortality.

What I have found in my own life is that it requires crazy courage to take the leap and trust that God has our back. It’s much easier to rely on our exquisite brains, gladiator bodies, and stubborn hearts to make our own way in the world. And for a while it works. Until the day we open our eyes and realize that not only are we not in charge, but, thank God, we don’t have to be. What an epiphany to realize that we were never meant to be Atlas, cursed to hold up the entire world——-our children, marriages, finances, health, and future. Sound the trumpets. Actually, it is God who is holding us up. And has always been.

It reminds me of what my childhood baby-sitter used to say, “Farrell, you are nothing but hard-headed!” 

We all are!

There is a point where perseverance, tenacity, self-reliance, and muscle only gets you so far, and then you must make the leap… and TRUST!

I’m betting on God in the New Year, how about you?

Live in Hope,

Farrell

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