So I Want You

The first day of a highly anticipated new year.

I suppose I feel a little bit obligated to mark the occasion with a maybe-no-so-highly-anticipated blog post. While I have written many posts over the last 6 months in my head, none of them have materialized on the keyboard, and so I find myself again in that awkward place of wondering where to start and what to say. My linear-loving mind wants to recap the last 6 months so I can move on decently and in order to today, but for lack of time and space and inclination I have to bypass the linear and go with something else. And that kind of gives me a headache. :-)

I'm entering this new year with a heightened sense of joy and anticipation. Christmas was like that for me, too - very much joyful, divinely joyful, noticeably joyful. More than one day began with my kids asking me if I'd had more than my customary two cups of coffee before I woke them up for school, but, no, it was just me - excited, full of joy - no extra coffee. And the sensation of Something at work in the real world that supersedes this natural world is perhaps even stronger now than it was during the Christmas season, so I am here, marking this day by a non-remarkable blog post, stopping long enough to say -

God is up to something right now.

Maybe you sense it too?

In the past I've marked the new year as many of us do, with resolutions of things to work on the coming year. I want to do this. I need to do that. I resolve to be better here, or there, or whatever. I often decide I'm going to learn something new this year and so this is the year I learn to knit, or to cook delicious food, or to speak Spanish fluently, or to play my guitar. I'm 50/50 on those, in case you were wondering. Last year I thought I might learn to speak Spanish, but instead I learned to listen to the voice of God, to follow where he leads, and I learned of the immense joy he brings in the middle of valleys, shadows, still waters, green pastures, mountaintops, and in the presence of my enemies.

I have wanted for nothing, save one thing. I have wanted for less of me, and more of Him. I can never get enough.

I go into this year expectant yet fully aware of my own inabilities and failings. I want more of God. I struggle with prayer. I trust Him fully. I am too self-sufficient. I can't... He can.

I could make a list of at least a dozen things to work on this year, at least a dozen things I'm eager to learn and do - one for each month, even - but instead I am going to encapsulate the whole thing with this:

I can't... You can. So I want you.

Amen.