The Specter and Hope of a New Year
Hopefully the troubles of this past year, what ever they may have been, will fade quickly for those who are wise and growing in truth. The past no longer exists except in our minds. It’s gone! Over! Through!! Nothing is left but to redeem it in the present. If not we become its slave! The past must however be “remembered right” or it haunts us! Most of us can’t seem to let it go … especially the bad things. We find the struggle exceedingly intense to truly forget our deepest wounds or losses, our foolish, even dumb mistakes, and our missed opportunities.
The same anxiety also grips us about the future. There are fears galore about keeping our jobs, management panic, over-extended finances, holding our marriages together, battling health concerns … even death, concern about our children, our burdens about our nation, and … above all … a vague yet nagging sense that we might not have what it takes to endure and conquer all that is to come in the year ahead.
One truth is obvious. If you continually collect your guilt and frustrations from your past and add to them your fears and doubts about your future, you will be a successful candidate for living THE DISPARING LIFE. Pity is the only word for the poor fools whose problems, pain and panic always seem greater than God’s promises, pardon and power! Alas, at times we have all too often played the fool.
For those of us who have put our lives, our troubles and our hopes in “the man” Christ Jesus, there is a promise of revelation of truth “beyond ourselves.” The solution to my trouble is not in me but in the Father. For instance, the Scriptures teach us we are to worship the God of “the eternal now!”(1 Chronicles 16:36; Psalm 41:12,13) It is today that matters most … not yesterday or tomorrow!
The concepts of past and future are human categories necessitated by our limitations as created beings. But if we comprehend the Father’s eternality we demolish the concepts of past and future as controllers over our lives. That’s hard … yes … almost impossible to grasp … but it is true. With yielded hearts and eager minds it is possible to glimpse the wonder of eternity. An illustration might help.
Jesus declared He was “the light of the world” (John 8:12). If one knows the properties of light this is a staggering claim. Light is warmth (sun), food (plants must have it to grow), revelation (it illuminates) and energy (laser, etc.). Light is also speed at 186,000 miles per second. If you fired a beam of light around the circumference of the earth it would circle our planet seven times in one second!! Distance is increasingly irrelevant with speed like that! Being eternal has the same relationship to the concepts of past and future as the speed of light has to distance. To know “The Light” of God is to escape the bondage of the past and future! Time is increasingly irrelevant with an eternity like ours. Time only exists to be dealt with while we move on to greater things!
Best wishes from the Staff of Ventures for Christ for a new year lived fully in the Light! Those who truly follow Christ are free from the darkness of their past and the darkness of their future (John 8:12). Why should any darkness dominate us when our NOW is filled with an inexhaustible Light that will never leave us! To live the Christ Life is to point Christ’s Light at every darkness that threatens our peace. So may it be with us all in 2007 as never before!
2 comments:
Your insight on light is very relevant and penetrating for me. God's perspective is never our's. Thanks for the encouragement and assurance for those who truly follow Christ. Being filled with the inexhaustible light of our NOW is active and present!
Everything you said made so much sense. Because of things that have happened in the past, I have had a hard time forgetting about them and letting them go, but what you wrote really helps so much.
Thank You.
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