I’ll apologize up front for the length of this post. As much as I’d like to wrap up 365 days in a 300 word post for easy consumption, I know it just can’t be done.
Too much has happened between January 1st and right now.
The title of this post is a nod to Aaron Sorkin, writer of The West Wing, SportsNight and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip who named the final episode of the first season of each show “What Kind Of Day Has It Been?” The idea is that while it concluded the first year the series would continue. It worked twice for him…I’m hoping it works once for me!
I’ve prayed, I’ve thought about topics and ran the words you’re reading through my head hundreds of times. While I’m actually writing it on Day 365, I can’t say that ideas didn’t come into my head over the last few months.
There have been some serious challenges this year. There have been things that fall into the “bad things” category and even though God will redeem and bring good out of things, there’s no way right now to say losing my job and separation from my wife has been a good thing. Financial struggles and closing door after closing door are difficult to face day after day. I’ve been betrayed by people that I trusted, I’ve had promises given to me only to find I had been lied to and bit my tongue as people stole my ideas.
The only thing keeping this from being the worst year of my life in terms of the struggles and challenges and loss is that I lost two grandparents in 2005.
But I am not going to wrap up this year dwelling on the massive amount of bad things that happened this year. It would be easy to give them full attention and give you a list of the bad but the biggest lesson I’ve learned this year is that God truly is in control of all things. There’s nothing that happened this year that God didn’t know was going to happen when the year started. Hey, He knew it was all going to happen when He told me that after doing a “one word” for the past five years He wanted me to kick it up a notch and do something called Mustard Seed Year.
God knew that I wouldn’t have a single speaking engagement despite the “goal” I made for myself on January 1st. He knew that I wouldn’t have a book deal, I wouldn’t have a regular article in a publication or any regular writing job (other than this blog!) God knew all my “goals” for this year would be blown out of the water by March.
Yet as I look back at this year, I want to focus on the things that God did and some of the more positive things that happened over the course of the year. I believe that this year has been a major success despite the earthly or worldly failures. Now go with me as I dig into why…
1. God broke a large pride issue within me. I’ve struggled with depression my entire life. As a teen, I did all I could to hide it from my parents and those around me but it was obvious I wasn’t a very happy kid most of the time. Throughout the years, that depression has driven other things in my life such as self-doubt and low self-esteem that I drove into an addiction to pornography and other addictive behavior where I tried to soothe the bad feelings within me. Even when I came to Christ, I still struggled with depression and no matter how much I prayed for relief it didn’t just disappear.
So this year, after so many bad things and allowing my focus on God to be skewed, I was challenged by some friends on my attitude. In the midst of pondering their words, I realized all the things I lost over my life by allowing depression to have it’s free run.
It took a lot of the pain this year and a lot of the loss for me to break down and admit I needed help with my depression. To allow God to lead me where I needed to go to deal with it. When I finally broke in front of God with it, He brought me a counselor and a doctor within a week. I’m amazed how an anti-depressant has really helped me. I realize now how much of life I’ve lost because I was too prideful to admit I needed help.
And I know that God will be able to use me for His purposes so much more now that this big mountain of pride has been moved.
If there was nothing else that happened this year, that would be enough. Praise God there was so much more.
2. God showed me that He will provide. Despite not having a job, despite coming up close for so many jobs and losing out on each of them, God has provided for my needs. Sometimes it’s been through family, some times it’s been through friends, some times it’s been through my church family and even complete strangers who sent funds anonymously. I haven’t gone hungry, I’ve had a roof over my head and I’ve had clothes on my back.
Has it been stressful sometimes? Oh yes. Has it been the very last minute that things would come in to meet needs? Yes. Are there bills right now that I have which have gone unpaid? Yes. But I know God is in control and He has proven Himself faithful. It’s something that I’ve said over the years and heard other Christians say but I and they have never been through the fire to really put it to the test. This year, I’ve been in that fire. My friends have seen that fire (as have those of you who’ve been here reading every day.) God’s shown up and proven His Word is true.
And God’s even provided me with gifts and blessings that were beyond my wildest imagination…like getting me tickets to the NASCAR race in Bristol! He knew that He would be moving me back to Missouri later this year and He gave me tickets to one of the two tracks where I wanted to see a race. He took me to Dubai for my former job allowing me to experience a completely different part of the world. I was able to see Rush play in Nashville in April. All good gifts come from the father of lights (as James says in the Bible) and God’s shown that to be true.
3. God brought me the people I needed when I needed them. I started to write out a list of the people who made huge impact in my life this year and after reaching about a hundred folks I knew that I couldn’t list them here because I would forget someone.
But when I needed someone, God brought them into my life.
I had Godly men like Pastors David Crawford and Joe Case in Nashville. Pete Wilson. Blake Bergstrom. Pastors that I know from blogs who became friends like Bill Grandi. I could go on and on about Michael Perkins and the friendship that started from twitter and blog comments and now is a weekly conversation.
All the online friends I’ve made this year that became real life connections like Lindsey Hartz or Matt Cannon or Jared Wilson or Larry Hehn. I’ve had someone send a gift card to Buffalo Wild Wings to us because Eli really wanted to go to BWW and we couldn’t afford it on our own at the time.
I can’t say enough about the online connections I’ve made through this blog, facebook or twitter. I can’t thank everyone enough for their support especially on my darkest days. I have to give special thanks to Wes Howard who God used to really kick the biggest change in me into gear.
There have been people who’ve helped me develop my writing like Sweetie Berry or who challenged me as a believer like conversations with Chris Goforth or Moe Vivas or Kevin Adams.
If you commented on this blog, if you messaged me on facebook or twitter or just spoke with me at church or a conference this year, thank you for allowing God to use you to invest into my life. You’ve been a blessing to me.
4. God has shown me that His plan is greater than mine will ever be. I made plans for this year when God put the idea into my head. Very quickly, those plans were blown apart. I went from a person who liked to have things planned and laid out cleanly in front of me to someone who was able to rest in knowing God is in control regardless of the chaos that may be surrounding me.
He had me lose my job only to open up a situation where because of that loss I go to Alabama and help a community’s radio station get back on its feet. There’s no way I could have seen that coming down the line nor even conceive of that being part of “my” plan for the year.
He’s brought good out of situations that I didn’t want to be in. For example, I didn’t want to be sitting in my old house in Springfield, Missouri when the year started out. I liked living in Nashville. Then God made it clear we were coming back here.
Suddenly, I had old friends reconnecting with me. I had people who were acquaintances become friends. One of my best friends announced he was moving back to Springfield. I plugged into a great church where I could serve both the church and the community. I’ve been able to volunteer with some great organizations. I’ve been able to find a lot of the person I wanted to be inside because we left Nashville and a lot of things behind in that transition.
I’ve been able to guest post and bring His messages to people who had never come across this blog in the past. He opened doors in places I would never have expected when I started out this year.
And most important of all…my moving back to Springfield doubled the amount of time I get to spend with Dale and Eli.
As the year wound down, I could honestly say that for the first time in a long time, I could look in the mirror and say I liked myself. I felt hopeful again and I felt like I had real value as I accepted the truth of my value to Him.
I had no idea I’d be broken and remolded the way God’s done this year. But that was His plan and I realize now that I needed to have everything that happened to refine me. I don’t know what’s coming in 2012 but I know God is in control and that’s all that matters.
5. Daily focus on God is essential. I know there are people who say you don’t need to read the Bible every day. You don’t need to pray every day. Let me tell you…you need to do it. When I’ve gone long periods of time without focused prayer and reading of the Word, it’s impacted my decision making and it’s impacted the way I lived life.
The days I’ve spent ample time in prayer and focused on His word I’ve found myself calmer, more focused and more energetic. There’s been more hope even on the days when things came crashing down.
We have a source of joy and hope and wisdom and guidance and life. We need to tap into it daily.
6. God taught me it’s important to keep doing what He tells us to do even when things don’t seem to be working out. There were many days the idea of hanging up Mustard Seed Year came to my mind. I came very close at one point to writing this entire thing off because of the struggles and my skewed focus on God. It had been a pattern I’d done in the past when things didn’t seem to be going as planned. (Remember, I was a planner…I had certain goals and milestones set up when I started out on anything.)
When God tells you to do something, it’s not always going to make sense. A lot of this year didn’t make sense. But He told me to do this all year and I’ve done it. My reward may be nothing more than the growth with me but that’s more than enough. If I hadn’t finished this year, if I had given up when the lowest points hit me, I wouldn’t have had the breakthrough that I’ve had which has given me a more hopeful outlook.
All of us are going to have times when we feel God telling us to do things that don’t make sense. We MUST push through even when every cell in our body is crying to give up. If He called you to it, He will bring you through it. I know that’s a cliche…but I’ve found it to be true this year.
7. You have to surrender it all to Him. Nothing can be a golden calf in your life. Nothing can be placed in front of God. If you do, He’ll take it all away from you so that your focus is completely on Him. The only way that God can truly make you into the person He created you to be is to lay down everything in your life. Whatever you hold back will hinder you.
It’s not easy. It’s not something all of us can do. I know I’ve struggled quite a bit with it and I’m still not perfect at laying everything down in front of Him. But I know beyond any doubt that’s the only way we can truly live as children of God. We can trust Him even when it seems like we’re losing it all.
8. Forgiveness is hard but necessary. I know that it’s a cliche to say that not forgiving someone for a hurt only causes more pain to you than them but I’ve found this year that it’s true. I’ve had a lot of people hurt me this year in a variety of ways. When I’ve turned those hurts to God and just said that I would take the lessons from it and leave the rest to Him, I’ve found freedom and a release of a lot of stress.
I’ve also worked through a lot of hurts and problems from many previous years in my life and found that forgiving people in those situations, even if I’ve never heard from them again, just makes me a stronger person. I’ve learned the value in forgiveness of myself in forgiving others. I’ve learned the power of the second chance. Even if the people to whom I forgive never accept the forgiveness or even care because of their own issues in life, I know that the forgiveness is something God calls us to do for our own health spiritually, mentally and physically.
9. There are a lot of wounds in the body of Christ that go without anyone helping to heal them. I’ve received a ton of e-mails and private messages from people this year who are struggling with various issues that read a post that resonated with them. People who didn’t want to leave a comment on the blog because they were afraid it would be traced back to them. They were in some kind of leadership and didn’t want people to know they were struggling with an addiction. They didn’t want their friends to know they were facing depression.
That’s why I had a lot of posts this year about encouragement and reaching out to each other. God opened my eyes this year to a lot of wounds that happen in the church and body of Christ that go unhealed for a variety of reasons. And no, it’s not all because of neglectful or unGodly leadership within a church (although that is the case in some places.) It can be as simple as all of us being so busy and caught up in the hustle of life that we don’t stop to realize the needs all around us.
The kind word that can mean so much to someone who feels alone. The bag of groceries dropped off to the family who’s been struggling to make ends meet. Inviting someone for coffee and listening as they unload a burden they’ve been carrying that’s been crushing them.
We cannot leave it to our church leaders to carry this weight on their own. I’ve seen clearly this year when God’s put me in places to help other people that all of us need to reach out to heal each other. We are ALL God’s children. You don’t need a PhD in Doctrinal Studies to give a sandwich to a hungry person. You don’t need to be a licensed therapist to encourage someone who’s struggling in life.
We can be hands, feet and mouths that bring healing. We need to do it. We’ll all be better off for it.
10. EVERYONE can have a Mustard Seed Year. Turning over everything to Him, looking for Him in everything of your everyday…it’s something we call can do. Every. Single. One. Of. Us.
It’s something I think we all need to do. That daily focus on Him in all things instead of just some parts of our life can really move mountains.
You know…that whole faith as a mustard seed thing?
I could go on but I’ve already reached 2700 words and if you’ve read this far I feel like I should give you a bag of Swedish Fish or something for the effort. It’s likely that I’ll post some more thoughts later today should God bring them to my mind. And MSY as a concept doesn’t end today…you’ll see more about that tomorrow. It’s kind of related to point 10.
Thank you to all of you who’ve been there this year whether it’s just been today or you’ve been there since day one.
Blessings to you all in 2012!
