What Goes With Me into 2010

I just read a New Year’s newsletter, and in it was written, “This will not follow me into the New Year.”

That sentence popped for me, especially in thinking in terms of New Year’s resolutions. Instead of being in the new year and seeing some old kink in my life, a bad habit or sin I have to overcome, my “this” can be left behind. In a very intentional way, it no longer has to be a part of my thinking or life as I move into a new year.

I think of the Live Free series I wrote over the last few years, it’s basic call to live free. How crucial it is to consider what pulls us down and keeps us from living fully free as God intended. Added to that concept, a verse I grabbed a hold of in a new way during this year is John 10:10: "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (NIV).

Life. God calls us to live it abundantly. In Greek that word is not bios—a simple physical, biological existence—but zoe. God invites us to a full-on thrust toward a passionate life.

Live freely. Live fully.

Couched in God’s purposes for my life and trusting his work within me, these two simple statements have become my passion and a part of my mission statement in what I do in life and ministry.

So the other side of my prayer-filled determination to not allow “this” to follow me into the New year, is bringing what I know fosters freedom and fullness with me into the New Year.

I’m picturing standing at a doorway. One side is 2009 and the other is 2010. I can’t stay in 2009. God created me, you, all of us, to be forward moving, not only in time, but in growth. I must go through the door. When I do, I can close it behind me and step into the New Year. No going back. With God's strength and life pulsing through me because I walk in trust in him, I can leave behind the old and step into greater freedom and fullness.

So over the next few days, I’m making lists.

This will not follow me into the New Year.

This will follow me into the New Year.

What will be on your lists? Girl talk time! (Though as usual, guys are welcome to join in the conversation too!)

Jan

http://www.jankern.com/
http://choose2livefree.com/

Fire, Fear, and Fullness

A couple weeks ago I was traveling through a beautiful canyon toward the northern California coast. The colored sky was filled with dramatic clouds only God could paint. Then the sky darkened over the mountains to the south and lightning shot toward the treetops. We didn’t realize these initial electrical cracks were the beginning of storms that would push California into a fire season that may become the state’s worst ever. It’s not over. Typical fire season for California doesn’t end until the rains of late fall.

Many Californians are in survival mode, fleeing their homes. Others are doing what they can to prevent a fire from taking everything they have—a fire not yet threatening, dreaded just the same.

Living in the country, surrounded by dry brush, I at times find myself in the latter group, consumed in fear of what to me sometimes feels inevitable but may not be.

Not a good way to live.

I have a dear, older friend who somehow works into every conversation the challenge to live fully. It’s what God designed us to do, she’d say.

I think she’s right. This week I’m challenged to look at ways I might be consumed by a fear or anything else that keeps my time or thoughts trapped in survival mode. I don’t want to just make it through a day or just survive my life. Instead, I want to be as available and open as possible to God’s work of fullness in each moment, no matter what the circumstances.

Psalm 16:11 talks about eternity that will one day bring complete fullness, but I believe the verse also hints of what I can experience now:

You have made known to me the path of life, you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (NIV)

Twenty-six words calling me to passionate fullness. Far beyond simply surviving. Definitely better than living in fear.

How about you? Have you ever found that you’re just getting through? Or that a task, fear, or difficulty has become so consuming that you’re in survival mode? What has helped you? What verses have you found stirring you to live more fully and passionately?

Please consider sharing. Someone might find encouragement in your experience.

Jan

http://www.choose2livefree.com/
http://www.jankern.com/