TOO MUCH ALONE TIME

Happy New Year!

These last few days I have been recording a few of the insights 2023 brought me. There are others and maybe I will still record those over the first few days of 2024.

Tonight it is late and I am ready to head to sleep, but I will finish the year with one last lesson: even an introvert needs people around.

For these past three days and a half, I have been alone in this house. 

Well, me and the dogs.

I have been fighting a sinus infection during that time and finishing up our Christmas letter and ... it's been kinda lonely. 

It feels like my constitution is beginning to change - I really do enjoy being around people the older I get. 

I spent the last three hours of 2023 in the sanctuary of Sardinia Baptist Church, praying and thinking. A few other people showed up to also think and pray. It was a great end to the year. 

SCHOOL OF PRAYER

"Teach me how to pray."

I am guessing that over the long run, making a habit of this simple, straightforward request of God along with daily contemplation on the words of the Lord's Prayer will prove to be the most important development of my past year. 

It got started back in June when I came to the painful realization that I was woefully underqualified to preach on prayer - while I was in the pulpit with Luke's account of Jesus' teaching on prayer in front of me.

It was disastrous.

But the next morning, I began to ask the Lord to teach me and I began to meditate on the words of the Lord's Prayer. 

And now?

After years of stagnation, I am in the school of prayer. 

(OK, it's kindergarten, but I'm on the right path!)

TO HAVE AND TO HOLD

Another major take away from 2023:

Author David Allen says, "Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them." 

After nearly three years of daily writing, I can attest to this truth. 

Like you, I often have profound insights concerning life, work, faith, or relationships while in the shower. 

How often do they remain past stepping onto the rug to grab a towel?

Holding ideas requires writing them down.

Now that I am daily on the lookout for writing material, I do a better job of capturing my thoughts and ideas - so I can get some use out of them. And that has been a game-changer for life.

Ideas which once were fleeting, are now preserved. And more: tested and expanded by making myself write about them.

And here's the greatest testament to how useful I have found this: I couldn't break this daily writing habit if I tried. 

"BELIEF" PROPER

Another significant lesson from 2023:

It has become clear to me this past year (and I have written about it several times here) that we as Christians are deeply confused about what is involved in "believing in Jesus". 

Mere mental assent to propositional truths - "God is three persons in one", "Jesus was like us in every way but was without sin", "Regeneration precedes faith"*, etc. - is not what Scripture means by "believe". 

We can argue doctrine all day long, but orthodox doctrinal statements do not save anyone.

Belief IN JESUS is at the core of salvation and it is a "belief" which goes far beyond "belief" in His existence or "belief" in this or that doctrine.

The belief in Jesus at the heart of Christianity is a love and trust that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, as the Son of God, is a definitive demonstration of God's great love for humanity. 

And something which you have experienced as life-altering!

It is the difference between me saying "I believe my wife exists" and me saying "I believe in my wife". 

"I believe my wife exists" requires nothing of me beyond mental assent to the obvious.

"I believe in my wife", on the other hand, assumes her existence as a matter of fact but then goes on to express so much more: my love, admiration, and trust of her. 

And where does that love, admiration, and trust come from? 

It isn't something conjured from my imagination.

It comes from relationship. 

(* It doesn't. 😉)

BEGINNER'S MIND

"Be willing to scrape away those old assumptions, to embrace new beliefs, to feel new ideas, and to lean into being wrong about things." - Sahil Bloom

One of the ideas I have latched onto this past year has been "The Beginner's Mind". To learn anything new as an adult, it is not only useful - it is essential. 

It involves embracing uncertainty.

(And that might be the hardest part.) 

We like certainty and we like being sure of our own understandings of reality. If I find myself debating someone about a topic, it is quite obvious that "I am right and he is wrong."

The beginner's mind learns to ask, "What if I am wrong about this?"

Here's a useful thought experiment relating to faith and orthodoxy:

Ask yourself, "How likely is it that my doctrinal beliefs are 100% on target?" In other words, If God Himself gave me a True/False quiz over things like infant baptism, predestination, the nature of hell, women in ministry, and every other hot button discussion Christians have, would you likely receive a perfect score?

Most are humble enough to admit their score is not likely to be perfect. 

But how many mistaken beliefs do you currently hold to? One? Two? Twenty?

(Shouldn't I be much more interested in correcting my own mistakes than in correcting my brother's or sister's?) 

And how would you ever locate those mistaken beliefs and then correct them?

It would be quite impossible to do - unless you have a beginner's mind. 

TIME TO PIVOT

Over the last several years, I have grown ever fonder of the day after Christmas.

All the stress of Christmas preparation has passed, everyone is content with their new stuff, and it's a good excuse to sleep in and be lazy.

But the best part of December 26th is that I can now officially shift my attention to preparing for the new year.

If I were a cooler guy, you might think I am referring to planning a spectacular New Year's Eve party. 

But not me - I am talking about reviewing the past year and then setting goals and making plans for the year to come. January is a great time to pivot.

Over the next few days - the last of 2023 - I plan to post about the most significant things I have learned this past year (or so). 

I want to do this to solidify the lessons in my own consciousness - before a new year of learning begins - but perhaps you will find them beneficial as well.

PRESENTS FOR ME

Here are a couple of my favorite Christmas gifts this year. On the left are two small bowls that Sarah made in her high school ceramics class and on the right is a vase that Hannah made in her college ceramics class.

Beautiful treasures!

This note from Samuel made my day, too. I love my conversations with all my kids as they get older and wiser - it's good to hear Samuel say he enjoys them too.

Maybe someday soon in the new year I will have reason to explain the party and harmonica references.

I don't mean to leave Caleb out - his gift is on its way. It's a bluetooth speaker that will fit nicely with the aesthetic of my home office. So that's very practical - and "practical" is right up there with "homemade" when it comes to my tastes in gifts.

All in all, it was a truly wonderful day even outside the gift-giving. Here are some random images from Christmas 2023:

The dogs enjoyed Christmas as much as we did.

Stockings are a big deal around here and they come first. 

The kids all did a great job in finding meaningful gifts for each other. And I love that some of those gifts were handmade works of art.

A few gag gifts, too.

Dinner at Grandma Trudy's house with all the cousins and their kids.

And then the chance to get a little one-on-one time with Grandma once all the other families left.