What is a year? Is it not a vapor? For an insect, a year is a lifetime, or perhaps many lifetimes; but to a man, a year is as sand falling through his hand, quickly passing, and then gone. Indeed, as we grow older, the years move quickly against us.
Perhaps I am just an old soul, but I feel the weariness of this world more and more with each passing year. Though, I suspect being an old soul has little to do with it; I imagine that you feel it too. Sin has the tendency to do just that - making us ache and groan, I mean. Sin strains the soul, it burdens the mind, and quite simply, it makes us tired. This dreary world makes our weary hearts long for rest, for home - for Him.
What is a year? Is it not a test-run? A dress rehearsal for that great and terrible Last Day when the curtain of life will finally be lifted and we find ourselves before “Him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13)? Just as our years are made up of days, so too are our lives made up of years. If we throw away our days - and our years - will not our life suffer gravely for it? The days go by slowly, but the years fly by. Our life is but a little flame that is easily and quickly snuffed out, and before long we are ushered upon the plains of eternity to give an answer for how we tended that flame. Indeed, as C.T. Studd once penned,
“Only one life, ‘twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”
As I am standing upon the doorstep of a new year, I’ve been taking stock of the past year. If the last twelve months can be seen as a microcosm of my life, a test-run of sorts, did I run my race well? The answer is both yes and no. As it is with many of us, no doubt, this past year has been a mixed bag; a series of bruises and blessings, a combination of dark valleys and high mountain tops. Over the last year, tears have been shed; both of joy and sorrow.
Even if I wanted to list everything that the Lord has done for me this past year, I could not. For, “I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). However, in remembering the past year, my mind was slowly being drawn to the year ahead. There are many exciting things lying before my feet in the upcoming year, for both myself and my wife, but there is a lot of change on the horizon as well. Suddenly, my thoughts began to drift not too all of the good that the Lord has done in the year behind, but to the things that must be done in the year ahead. In no time at all, my distracted mind began to compose a list of everything that required my attention in the coming days and months: bills to pay, deadlines to meet, difficult conversations to have, and so on, endlessly it seemed. It’s so easy to feel stretched thin, like “butter spread over too much bread.”
And then, just as suddenly as my mind became distracted, a certain warmth began to bleed across my soul. Within moments, indeed in the moment between moments, a single truth took hold: “You are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful.”
The words felt like a strong embrace. I couldn’t at first recall where these words were from, but the speaker, the who, was unmistakable. It took me only a brief moment to pinpoint where exactly these words came from, and then I remembered:
“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her’” (Luke 10:38-42).
There is a sense in which the past year of my life can be characterized by distraction. Not a distraction with bad things, exactly, but with lesser things. Not an all-consuming distraction with lesser things by any means, but not a whole-hearted devotion to the most important of things either. In the midst of such profound blessings - my relationship with the King of kings, my beautiful wife, our family, and our church family - how easy it is to become fixated nonetheless on the fleeting things of this world: financial responsibilities, work stress, and the state of the world at large.
In our daily lives, there are many voices and vices vying for our attention. And yet, amidst the clamor of these many voices, the voice of the Lord cuts directly to the heart. When this passage in Luke 10 came to my mind, I was struck by how powerfully and immediately it set my heart at ease.
The sound and fury of this world is no match for the still, small voice of the Lord; He created your heart, He doesn’t need to shout. He is the good shepherd, and His sheep “know His voice” (John 10). In asking the Lord for wisdom and guidance in the year ahead, He provided at once from His Word the very words I needed to hear most.
Indeed, “one thing is needful.” For, in this one thing, intimacy with Christ and obedience to His Word, all other things are bound. To make much of Him is to make much of all things. To love Him with every iota of my being is to also love my wife, family, church, and community to the utmost. It is a profound mystery, but it also makes total sense. If we are willing to lose our lives for Him, we will surely find our lives in the process - for He is life itself.
My friend C.S. Lewis, who at this point is such a fixture of this blog that he might as well be a co-writer on it, remarked on this very mystery with these words: “Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things.”
As we embark upon the uncharted waters of a new year, doubtless many of us have considered what resolutions we should commit to - or recommit to - this January. To read more books, watch less television, eat healthier, workout more than thrice a year, and read the Bible daily are all worthy endeavors. However, let us not make the mistake of assuming that these alone will improve us. We must, by God's grace and with a renewed heart, strive to make purposeful resolutions that will draw us into deeper communion with Him rather than presume that our flimsy attempts at reform will further endear us to Him who died for us while we were yet His enemies. Rise up earlier, pray more regularly and fervently, scour the Scriptures, violently even - do it all and do it well, but do it with the end in mind of knowing and understanding Him.
While you consider your resolutions, consider also for a moment a selection of resolutions from 18th-Century Puritan Jonathan Edwards' list of over five dozen resolutions that he maintained, edited, and reviewed on a daily basis for much of his life (the full list of Edwards' Resolutions can be found on Desiring God's website, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-resolutions-of-jonathan-edwards). Some of my personal favorites among Edwards' resolutions include:
4.) Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.
6.) Resolved, to live with all my might, while I do live.
22.) Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can, with all the power; might, vigor, and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.
62.) Resolved, never to do anything but duty; and then according to Eph. 6:6-8, do it willingly and cheerfully as unto the Lord, and not to man; “knowing that whatever good thing any man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord.”
And so, while we may not know what lies ahead in the year to come, let us endeavor, all of us, to put first things first. May we be resolved like Jonathan Edwards “to live with all [our] might, while [we] do live.” Though, perhaps the Apostle Paul put it simplest and best when he said, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). O, that the words of John the Baptist would flood my heart and pour from my lips in prayer: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30)!
In the midst of any anxieties and troubles that may come our way in the year ahead, let this banner be over our hearts: He must increase, but I must decrease. Many things are important, but one thing is needful. He shall not be taken away from us, nor us from Him. Come what may in the days ahead, the Lord is God, and God He shall stay.
Photo by Photoholgic, Unsplash
If this post reads somewhat familiarly, that may be because it is adapted from an older post of mine, “One Thing is Needful.” Sometimes, we writers begin working on a piece only to realize we've already said all that we have to say about that topic in some earlier work - and often in far fairer words also! - save a few additions or subtractions here and there. However, seeing as how it is no great crime to plagiarize oneself, I took it upon myself to weave my old words into new ones, Lord Willing with some encouraging results. Enjoy, and Happy New Year, my friends!
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