New Years Thoughts

No bells
No horns
No tinsel
No brightly dropping ball
Just a lonely quiet clock tick
From high upon the wall
One tick the past
One tick the now
One tick the future brings
And deep within my heart
Past new years tidings ring
Yet here I stand a sollum
New years weight upon my heart
For so it seems this past new year
Was better at the start
So much hope
So much joy
So much promise
All washed away
Like winters snow
Now as distant tidings ring
A humbling emptiness I know......

Last year at about this time I was finishing up my last class at Frostburg. I had already graduated and was wondering where God was going to take me after I was completely done, what this next season of my life would bring. My professor had us write out a list of 30 things that we wanted to accomplish in the year 2008, I found that list while I was cleaning a couple of weeks ago. After looking over it I must tell you that this year turned out nothing like I had thought, most of the things on my list had not happened and sitting there thinking about it left me with a sad and empty feeling.

But that brought me back to what this season of my life has been all about. I left Frostburg expecting God to fill my life with all these things that looked to be falling into place. I was excited and expectant but God had different plans. While I was looking for God to fill my plate with work and ministry and family He saw that my deepest need was to be totally emptied so that He could pour Himself into the deepest realms of my heart. Emptying seasons are rarely enjoyable and they usually cause a lot of pain but I had a new friend encourage me and set the tone for this season of my life by telling me that “God doesn’t waste pain.” Though God has totally emptied my life of the ambitions and dreams that I was reaching for he has provided an even higher ambition of seeking to know what it means to live a life that is totally centered in Christ. To learn what it means to die with Christ and to be raised with Him into a new and glorious kingdom life.

I don’t know what 2008 held for you but I encourage you to make that the goal and focus of 2009. Christ is the only thing worth reaching and striving for everything else is just a shadow that is meant to point us toward the good things that are to be found in Christ but never to be held on to.
Colossians 2:8-14, 17
And now for the end of the Poem....

Yet from my weary heart
A ray of hope doth spring
For God into that emptiness
His promised fullness brings
And so into this next new year
One goal is all I take
To seek my Lord
With all my heart
Him to my center make