Tearing Down Walls & Beginning Again

Most everyone looks to another year as a chance to start anew.  Schedules, book lists, fitness plans.  It would seem most people will stay strong for perhaps two weeks, maybe more if you're dedicated and disciplined.  Those of you who stick with it longer amaze me, and perhaps here's why.

Maybe I'm one of few to experience this - but my ambitions, aspirations, etc. hardly ever go uninterrupted.  Good grief, my own trains of thought interrupt themselves.  Focus can be a hard issue to fix...I'm thankful my attention span doesn't determine my salvation.

Where December meets January, I don't necessarily make more self-care or exercise goals (though maybe I should?).  Instead I've made a practice of spending that precious thirty-first listening intently to my soul.

I make a list.  Not a to-do list, not a numbering of things to check off as an attempt at perfection.  But writing can be therapy, a way to sort out jumbled thoughts.  It helps.

I'll spend the day in meditation, in remembrance of all He's brought me through over the past twelve months.  Yesterday was spent in much silence, inviting Him to come and write on my heart what He wants to do in me in the following twelve.  I write it out and find a place to put it on my wall.

It's easy to fear the unknown, to look into the dark of the New Year's morning with uncertainty.  We may be desperately seeking a new start, and I believe there's a sort of vulnerability that comes with that.  This can feel uncomfortable, and it may cause us to doubt our ever opening up.  It might make us wonder if we should've dared to step out in the first place.

But I believe that vulnerability can (and should!) walk hand in hand with wholesome, healing community.  Being open and honest with each other is not a necessary evil, but a holy privilege. 

I know it's not always a lovely picture.  Betrayal, judgement, misunderstandings and rejection happen.  Our world is still fallen.  But redemption has come to God's people, and we need to fight for each other.  We need to fight for the connection established between us by the blood of Christ.  This starts by opening up to your people, and being somebody that others can open up to.  

"The reality of living by faith as though we were already dead, of living by faith in open communion to God, and then stepping back into the external world," Francis Schaeffer writes in True Spirituality "This is not once for all, it is a matter of moment-by-moment faith, and living moment by moment."

Living in the light of eternity looks like beginning again every morning, maybe every hour, every minute.  We get to choose to carry this newness of life with us far past the newness of the year.

This means tearing down the walls around our hearts and taking a spiritual sledge hammer to the false strongholds we've set up - the idols of self-dependence, pride, and fear that somehow we were finding twisted comfort in.

I have to preach this to myself every day.

Why let ourselves be so terrified of tearing down our walls?  Why be afraid of the Love that waits for us, and the love He lets shine through His people?

"With Christ, there may be dangerous places - but never unsafe ones," my pastor said a few weeks back.

He hasn't invited you and I to intimacy with Him and community with those around us in order to hurt us.

My prayer for this year is that you and I will both tear down our walls and bravely choose to begin practicing communion again and again.