The Shape of My Year

New Year’s resolutions have never been a strong suit of mine.  My sense is they have never been a strong suit for most. 

Easy enough to make them. 

Easier still to break them. 

If you pressed me, I wouldn’t be able to recall a single resolution I have made, let alone kept for any measure of time that might deem it a success.  It seems to me that I have set New Year’s goals in the past.  (Goals feel different than resolutions to me for some reason.)  But there again, press me and I wouldn’t have a single one to list off for you. 

Years back, when I was youthful and zealous, I’d stay up until midnight with a group of guys and, rather than whoop and holler in the New Year with fireworks and Champaign, we’d kneel and pray over the coming months.  But even still, these nights were never capped with any great resolutions to change the world or bury a bad habit or read the Bible in a year or whatever was trending then and now. 

A couple years back, however, I tried something different; something I found to be more meaningful than a resolution or a goal…

I have learned that December rarely offers me time enough to stop and consider the new year.  January, on the other hand, tends to slow down a bit.  February a bit more yet.  And then my birthday lands here on March 2.  So, I try to spend the month of January and February praying and listening in to God and His Word during devotion times, quiet drives, early morning walks, or whenever I can pause the muddle in my mind long enough to attune to the Divine. 

What am I praying and listen for?  Words, two or three tops. 

I want a couple words that might characterize the year ahead.  Two or three adjectives to clarify and color-in the subjects of the seasons before me and my family.  Two or three qualities or attributes by which to frame the moments and movements of coming months. 

Last year the words that plundered my days were:  Peace, Prayer, and Play.

This year…        Simple

               Slow

  Still

Don’t they just sound wonderful to read?  Maybe they sound idealistic?  Maybe they sound threatening?  Maybe they sound like a lot of work?  On some level or another, they sound like all those things to me.  But here is what I imagine when I say them…

Simple seems to be trending right now.  The bulk of resources promoting the idea of “simple” or “simplicity” are enough to entirely contradict the idea itself!  When the idea of simple came to rest on me as an attribute for the year I could barely stand it.  The last thing I am interested in is being trendy; of simplifying everything down to bare wall necessities, white linen clothes, and a refrigerator half-full of foods with two organic ingredients or less.  There would have to be more to it for me to pick it up.

Biblically the idea of simple is largely negative.  It’s thrown down as the opposite of wise or prudent, mostly throughout Proverbs.  That’s not the simple I’d hope for.  As I was reading in the Psalms, however, one usage forced its way in front of me and I could not quickly pass over it…

“Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;

our God is merciful.

The LORD preserves the simple;

when I was brought low, he saved me.

                                Return, O my soul, to your rest;

                         For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

                                                                        - Psalm 116:5-7

I read it over and over and nearly wept at the sight and sound of it.  This is the simple I long for.  I long for the simple that compels my God; gracious and righteous and merciful that He is, to preserve me.  I long for the simple that finds me, not high and lifted up, but rather low and laid out.  

A synonym for “preserve” is sanctuary.  This year I’ll find the simple found in a set apart space that promotes rest.  This year I’ll notice the simple found in the Lord’s bounty; a filled-to-overflowing life of only what I need, not a bare-bones minimalist life of what I want.   

Slow narrows considerably in meaning when it is set in opposition to fast.  It becomes a road sign near a tight curve or a warning in a hallway that was just mopped.  Slow is a turtle or a sloth or a snail.  When the idea of slow settled into view I counted it in terms of speed.  I want to move from fast to slow.  I want to drive the speed limit.  I want to actually stop at STOP signs.  I want to “WALK, don’t run.”  But the slow God had in mind for me; the slow I need, would be broader still.

The Bibles uses slow mostly in the context of getting angry, and even then it refers mostly to God.  Again and again God is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”  The letter from James then turns it toward me as an imperative:  “Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19).  But dawdling around in the pages of Peter’s second letter is where I found the slow God knew I needed…

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but He is PATIENT toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

- 2 Peter 3:9

Here again, I read it over and over and nearly wept.  Did you notice it there; all caps and standing upright?  I don’t need to drag my feet more or ride the brakes more.  I need to be patient with those who do.  I need slow like God is slow.  Patient, not pokey.

God isn’t standing at an open front door tapping his foot and checking the time, hurrying me along because we’re running late to the next stop along the way.  God is patient toward me.  He has a higher hope in view for me; indeed for humankind as a whole.  This year I’ll seek slow like God is slow.  This year I’ll cultivate a patience that moves at the pace of the divine. 

Still shows up on the page with a couple meanings.  You may guess I do not mean “nevertheless” or “yet” or “even still.”  That would be a silly characteristic to try to shape these coming months around.  Rather, as again you may guess, by still I imagine a sort of “hold still!”  But I imagine it from the inside, out.  I imagine the workings of this whole being of mine, body and spirit, to hold still more or longer or something other than what I know now.

The familiar Psalm 23…

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters…”

THAT… That still right there.  That still born deep within; born of God in me and working to restore me from day to day to day.  My Bible has a footnote that says it could just as well read, “…beside waters of rest.”  Can you imagine those waters?  I think I can.  I think they are calm and they move quietly when they move at all; they move slow…

“Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him.”

- Psalm 37:7

This was the verse here that I read over and over and caused me nearly to weep.  Here are slow and still cinched up together in the presence of my God, Creator and Redeemer.  Here was confirmation that not one or the other along with simple would characterize the seasons ahead, but both of them; slow being the pace of still or vice versa? 

“Be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.”

- Psalm 46:10

At times I’ve read “Be quiet and know…”?  Other times I’ve read “Don’t move and know…”?  But maybe still is both.  This coming year I need a still that is both a hush and a halt.  This coming year I need the still that buries quietness AND motionlessness deep in my soul.  For, in this stillness there is room enough to finally know who is God and who is not; who will be exalted and who will not. 

                                Simple

                Slow

Still

Each one wonderful.  Each one idealistic.  Each one threatening.  Each one hard work.  Each one precisely what I hope to receive and give forth this coming year.  Will you help me?