Eleven months have passed since I left New Zealand for Canada on January 14. Sometimes it feels like 11 years and in other moments, 11 days! Time is strange. Sometimes it is as though we are trapped in it (like when you're lying on the airport floor waiting for a flight that is delayed by 9 hours) and other times flying above it, watching it pass by, feeling detached from it.
Looking back on this year, I am so grateful to be on this life's journey with Jesus, the Alpha and Omega - The Beginning and End - the God who transcends time as we know it. I guess we submit to time, but time submits to Him. The idea of God knowing the entire course of my life used to scare me but it has increasingly become one of the most liberating things in the world because it means
I don't have to know! It's comforting to know that while I can plan out my path, He will direct my steps. I used to perceive that directing as God "letting me get settled and happy on the path of life and then yanking the rug out from under my feet, sending me sprawling". This subconsiously motivated me to take control of my own life, to map out my plans and make sure they can't possibly fall through. But they do. And they did. I think the more we try to cling to control, the more we imprison ourselves. At least that has been my experience.
A couple of months ago I was hit by the realization that for most of my life it's as though I've been running down the corridor of a prison I'd created for myself; I was running frantically, not knowing what I was running from...actually, not even knowing I
wasrunning (denial is a powerful force!), tired, but unable to stop. This year God set things up in such a way that I had to stop running because positioned at the end of my self-created corridor was Jesus...I collided with Him standing at the end and "all hell broke loose". Which is a good thing. It needed to break loose because it was causing destruction on the inside. He has had me in such a place that wherever I turn, it's to Him; whenever I run, it's to Him; whenever I hide, it's in Him. I think it might be John Piper that said "Jesus isn't safe but He is satisfying." He isn't safe because being in His presence means being in process and experiencing change (aww but I just want to stay wrapped in blankets in bed forever!) and yes, death - the me being dredged out of me so there is all the more room for Him (in Whom I discover the "real me", anyway!) Jesus is satisfying because the more we experience of Him, the more we desire. That sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, but the more we desire, the more He gives us and the more we are filled with the Fullness of God.
Most of my plans for this year have been blown apart...for starters, I was only going to be in Canada for 3 months and here I am almost a year later...I look back in wonder at where He has brought me from and where He is taking me. I can barely recognise myself now (in a good sense). The process of being disassembled is a very painful one but in the process of being reassembled by the Author of Life I am seeing what it really means to "live". And following the seeing comes the feeling - it's so good to feel ALIVE.
It's all about dying in order to truly live...dying to self and being filled by Him. It's all about love. Not some abstract kind of love, but His love, the love that couldn't get anymore tangible than the person of Jesus. Jesus, who lived among us as the broken so we could be healed. Jesus, who died instead of us to replace our record of imperfection with His perfection. Jesus, who rose and lives today in defiance of death. No one else has been able look death in the eye and overcome it so I think we can trust Him when He says, "I have come that you may have LIFE and have it abundantly" and "I am the Way, the Truth and the LIFE; no man comes to the Father except through relationship with Me" (The Bible). Grace.
"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."
"That is because you are older, little one," answered he.
"Not because you are?"
"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."
(C.S Lewis, "Prince Caspian")
He just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.......
Eleven months have passed since I left New Zealand for Canada on January 14. Sometimes it feels like 11 years and in other moments, 11 days! Time is strange. Sometimes it is as though we are trapped in it (like when you're lying on the airport floor waiting for a flight that is delayed by 9 hours) and other times flying above it, watching it pass by, feeling detached from it.
