REFLECTIONS

A Time to Wonder

A new year. For many it is a time for resolution—to take charge of life as if one can control destiny without bother from the wake of unforeseen obstacles that will rear their ugly head. Even fortuitous happenings change the course of life as it’s expected it to be. But a new year is also a time of wonder. What will tomorrow bring?

A new year is such a good time for reflection—where am I; and where am I wanting to go. For most of a person’s life, New Year resolutions focus on where do we go from here? It’s only logical since we can never go back nor even stand still for long. But there does come a day when it’s time to consider the legacy we leave more than accomplishments to achieve.

In his book, The Letter, one of Richard Paul Evans characters observes, “From our first babblings to our last word, we make but one statement, and that is our life.” So, I wonder, what statement my is life making? And will that statement convey the message God sent me into the world to leave?

Life is not meaningless unless we choose to direct our lives toward meaningless objectives.  In The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard, writes, “Meaning is not a luxury for us. It is a kind of spiritual oxygen, we might say, that enables our souls to live. It is a ‘going beyond,’ a transcendence of whatever state we are in toward that which completes it. The meaning of present events in human life is largely a matter of what comes later. Thus, anything that ‘has no future’ is meaningless in the human order.”[1]

I might describe it this way: By definition, meaning is what one intends to convey; the end, purpose, or significance of something. Meaning is an important driver in a person’s life. True meaning endures beyond the long term. Only God endures forever; so meaning must point to God—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—the First and the Last.

So I wonder what statement will my life make? We won’t know until it’s over, or really know until Jesus comes again.

But I pray the statement my life makes conveys the meaning God intended for it.

“You are the light of the world,”

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org.

[1] Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. Copyright 1997, HarperCollins, San Francisco, page 386.

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