Before Another Year Goes By

As 2022 draws to a close and the slow march toward a new year approaches, we are presented with a few lingering opportunities.

A helpful practice to consider is to look back over the year and reflect on the ways God has demonstrated His faithfulness, provision, guidance, and presence. That can be a positive reflection that ushers in gratitude and humility.

Another side to examining our year is a reflection on our lack of faithfulness, mistrust, lack of dependence, and a sense of God's absence. That reflection can help us welcome a time of confession and repentance.

It is at this point precisely that the Gospel meets us. Where we hear those gentle and life-changing truths from Jesus about our failures and His forgiveness, where He sees us for who we truly are and whispers, "I love you."

It can be transformative amid the horror of our sin to experience the grace of Jesus. To acknowledge that His love and presence with us is less dependent on our performance and more a reflection of His unearned love towards us.

Here is a simple way to see this practice: remember His faithfulness -> confess our faithlessness -> receive His grace.

There is a unique teaching that emerges from a poignant moment in the life of Jesus to help us consider this from another perspective.

As Jesus continued on toward Jerusalem, he reached the border between Galilee and Samaria. As he entered a village there, ten men with leprosy stood at a distance, crying out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!"

He looked at them and said, "Go show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy. One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus, shouting, "Praise God!" He fell to the ground at Jesus' feet, thanking him for what he had done. This man was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, "Didn't I heal ten men? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?" And Jesus said to the man, "Stand up and go. Your faith has healed you." - Luke 17:11–19

If you were to place yourself in this text, what position do you naturally drift towards? Probably not the role of Jesus, so it's either the one who returned to praise God at the feet of Jesus or the nine who didn't return to give God glory. The other option is to see ourselves in both. At times we are thankful and full of praise for the beautiful things God has done, while at other times, more of an amnesiac towards the daily provision and grace we are given.

Our practice of looking back becomes the starting point for our movement forward. A practice of learning from our past mistakes and failures and not living from them.

Learning where we are vulnerable to forgetting the avalanche of His grace.

Learning where the goodness of God overflows into our thoughts, hearts, and lives.

Learning that God's grace propels us to a life of His presence both in our failures and faith.

Through the bombardment of the ensuing 'new' at the start of a new year, and the inevitable discussions about resolutions and habits - what if we also started to make a regular practice of watching for God's goodness towards us, acknowledging our sin, and moving forward in His grace?

Happy new year my friends - I am excited to worship with you at the very start of 2023!

-Bradley