Stretching into a New Year

As the year has reached its close and snow blankets our landscapes, we are all prone to take some moments for peaceful reflection. My company ceases production to perform its annual inventory, and I believe each one of us should pause from the holiday frenzy and do the same.

One of the wise old Greeks told us that the unexamined life is not worth living, and he makes a lot of sense. Only a fool would insist, looking back on any given year, that all of his words, thoughts, actions and circumstances were completely to his liking. Not to mention morally ideal.

But the fact that I'm prone to sins, weaknesses, mistakes and failures need not paralyze or discourage me as I look forward to a new year. As a human being, and as a Christian, the impulse toward self-assessment and self-improvement is built into my natural and spiritual makeup. I look beyond myself and survey this world's vistas, filled with both wonderful delights and dreadful sorrows; I experience both the wonder and the fear as I take stock of how I've either enriched or impoverished my own little slice of reality, as well as creation at large.

It bothers me that so much of my time, energy, money and attention has been focused on myself.

My own recently published novel looms large in this arena of self-absorption. While I sincerely believe my book contains material that could prove beneficial to my readers, I have to admit that the attention I've sought to draw to the book wasn't purely for the edification of others. Far from it.  I'm enough of an egotist to enjoy...revel in...sometimes wallow in the positive feedback I've gotten (even the meager "compliment" that I hear so frequently: "Wow, it's really big!").

And this is only one of my many weaknesses that haunt me with regret as I survey 2013.

I suppose my world has a tendency to shrink inward, like pizza dough when one seeks to stretch it out to fit a large pan. A small, selfish world is easy to manage, and a larger world that includes God and His creation (with all kinds of people) features risks, pains and inconveniences along with the beauty and the wonder. And I wonder: Do I truly care about "making a difference"? And, if I do care, am I truly convinced that what I'm able to do really matters?

My pastor once used that pizza dough analogy to describe our view of God--it, too, tends to shrink. I tend to forget just how big and in control the Almighty is.

Hasn't God assured us in His word that the prayers of a righteous man accomplish much? When Christ's righteousness is reflected in my life, I have His promise that my prayers can move mountains.

Lord, please forgive my selfish shrinking...make me willing to look outward, to you and to your world of possibilities...make me willing to have you stretch my world, and my faith, in 2014. Amen.