Alive!

I am writing this obviously more for my benefit than for anyone else's. The seasons of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and now New Year have come.....and gone! So, now what? What do we have to look forward to? In a word....

LIFE.

So much of life happens between the bookends. As we read the book the title just draws us in and the contents page just lays out the progression, but until you turn to page 1 and begin to read, nothing really can be learned or appreciated from the book.

So much of life I feel falls in a similar vein. We can start this year with all the good intentions and can declare it by title...2010! Now the analogy breaks down, because as LIFE happens the contents of this year begin to be etched upon the pages of each day, month, and then in summation, the year's end. But nothing can be experienced apart from the living of this life.

We look back and see that from January 1st to December 31st we have experienced the real and the mundane. But is life really able to be mundane? When you take into account that somewhere right now children are born....and children die? When you take into account that there are those whose livelihoods were taken away this past year and others had great success? When you consider that someone's daughter or son went off to college, graduated, got married, or moved to another country?

How can we say that life is mundane? How can we call life routine? Life is what we are filled with, look forward to, protect with all our might. Life is who we are and what we live for.

So, what will our life be like this new year? What will we live for? What will we give up, let go, or claim as the moment of great delight, fear, hope, dread, or success?

LIFE

To know it, and to have it, and then to live it. As a Christian my life is sourced, founded and sealed in the ONE who alone has given to me real LIFE, real purpose, and real hope. LIFE has no real meaning apart from Christ and the life He has blessed me with. Yes, blessed me with. Even in death, in loss, or in great triumph and new found directions, all of these come together for His glory and my good.

As comes the New Year, so comes the opportunity to remember the New Life that we have because of Christ. May this new year afford us the opportunity to make Christ the real success in our lives. May we be found at December 31, 2010 as a faithful steward and a promoter of LIFE in Christ.