Your best year yet

A family friend who is a missionary in Colombia ended his recent Christmas newsletter with these words: Merry Christmas, and may 2012 be your best year yet in your relationship with God! 

What a sweet blessing! 

What a bless-able prayer! 

As I grow older, I find my relationship with God bombarded by doubts, sleepiness, fear, and, most annoyingly, familiarity. 

I've been a Christian for a lot of years now--and been in Sunday School and church even longer--and I sometimes feel a sort of "been there, done that" attitude towards my relationship with God. I mean, I don't feel that way all the time--not at all--but I must admit that I too often ignore God's tugs on my heart to STOP all the puttering and striving and simply spend time with Him. And when I do stop, I too often open the Bible with the hope that something will magically "jump out at me," rather than disciplining myself to study all these passages and stories I've read so often, to think deeply about them and strive to understand in new ways. 

I am ashamed to admit this slacker attitude. I want to hunger and thirst after God and after His word. I don't want to be like those people in Isaiah 30:15 who God admonishes for refusing to find their salvation in repentance and rest and their strength in quietness and trust. They didn't want to bow before their King or sit in the lap of their Savior. They didn't want to listen to their Counselor or trust their tenderhearted Provider. They would have none of it, as it says in Isaiah 30:15. And that was their loss. 

I don't want it to be my loss. And so, I pray 2012 will be my best year yet in my relationship with God. And I pray 2013 will be even better, and so on, and so on. 

And, dear friend, I pray the same for you, whether you have yet to start a relationship with God or have celebrated decades of anniversaries. As author C.S. Lewis described this most paramount of relationships, may we all go "further up and further in" throughout eternity.