New Year Wishes are about Moving from Your Edges to Your Center

The outer rim of one's periphery... the rough edges where you spin and toil and fret and tire...the land of "to do's" and "not yet done's".  It is an easy place to find oneself in early January.  

It's a good nesting ground for New Year's resolutions.  The new You. We carry around this longing and hope for change that seems to have a Petri dish in which to grow in January.  We have these questions...Who is the best me?  What should the best me be doing differently?  When will my relationships reflect the best me? Where is the best place for me?

 This is the case no matter which type of person you are....you are either a New Year Resolution Making type of person or you are a New Year Resolution Avoiding type of person.  Both have their pros and cons.

Either way, the new year brings in focus the goals we have not yet attained, what isn't good enough yet about ourselves, what falls short in our relationships, where we wish we were that we aren't yet,  the things we hope to change into something else this year...

....what if a better place to focus on is the Source of that longing to change. 

More fulfilling is an understatement when you compare the two approaches:  It's not about whether you should or should not make resolutions...it's about the Source of Desire  those stirrings come from.  About connecting with the Divine Energy that motors those longings. 

"To this end I labor, struggling with all His energy, which so powerfully works in my." 

Colossians 1:29

"...His incomparably great power for us who believe.  That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms..." 

Ephesians 1:19

Going the "New Year Resolution way"  can make you feel so conquered by your "old stuff".   It makes me think of one of my favorite songs by Sara Groves:

" Feels like I have been waking up
Only to fight with the same old stuff
Change is slow and it fills me with such doubt" (I highly recommend downloading it, it is awesome click here to listen to the whole song)

As Ann Voscamp says (oh, she speaks my language), "In a new year, the only hope of a new me, is only Christ in me....Nothing will happen this year apart from Him. Nothing will be remade, nothing will be transformed, nothing will be satisfying apart from Him. The most important skill to have in 2014 is paying attention to Jesus — nothing else is worth spending your one beautiful year on. "

Instead of an action plan to accomplish change, what if waiting in the Presence of the Goal Maker is the only goal?  What if we banished striving from our vocabulary and replaced it with resting?

And what if while you are still and waiting, every ounce of your being became satisfied? And what if, in the manner it makes a real difference, you opened your eyes rooted into the belief that you are eternal, infinite, and whole?

Laced through with the Holy Spirit...who takes up where you leave off and  completely resources your inner being with wisdom, revelation, enlightenment, hope, power, peace and a rich inheritance (Eph 1:15-18)?

And from that place, all soaked up and shinning with God's glory, you got up totally separate from all the doubt and discouragement that disempower you, and you were left with this peaceful "All is well" place from which to move.  Whether or not you make or don't make or keep or don't keep your resolutions, I think you come out extremely fortunate, privileged and blessed.

I would love to sit down over a cup of tea and talk about ways to wait and rest intentionally.  We find plans all over the place on how to organize and prioritize and execute. They are a dime a dozen. But where's the plan to sit and wait?  We are just not wired for that these days.  But there is a line of Christian spirituality--contemplative Christian spirituality--that has some gems to offer to practically integrate this into your life. This is, to me, a therapy that affects your emotions, thoughts, behaviors, and relationships.

Please feel invited to come and sit with me and let's put our heads and hearts together about how to make this waiting and stillness practical and fruitful for you. This is like drawing in, like pulling yourself to your core, to the rich meaningful place within you that is your truest self.  Seems like we have to do that on purpose. We dont end up at the center automatically.  What a sweet honor that would be for me!

Here are the full lyrics to "Like a Skin":

"Like A Skin" by Sarah Groves

The butterfly can just look back
Flap those wings and say, oh, yeah
I never have to be a worm again

The snake gets tired of being him
He wriggles from that itchy skin
Leaves it lying where he's been and moves on

I've been longing for something tangible
Some kind of proof that there's been change in me

Feels like I have been waking up
Only to fight with the same old stuff
Change is slow and it fills me with such doubt

Come on, new man, where have you been?
Help me wriggle from this self I'm in
And leave it like a skin upon the ground