A Look Back at 2014, A Look Ahead to 2015

As 2014 closes out and 2015 begins, I’d be remiss if I didn’t join the masses and get retrospective on the year that was and prospective on the year to come. It’s a healthy thing to do. Taking a step back from daily tasks and to-do lists helps me take a breath and see all that God’s been doing in the world. It also helps me anticipate a new year of, well, God doing stuff.

In my personal life, it’s been a wonderful year. God answered the prayers sent up during my 9-month unemployment with a fantastic job that has led to the most spiritually formative year of my life. I got engaged to an amazing woman that I seem to admire more and more each day. She brings joy, adventure, and peace into my life in so many ways, and I’m so excited to spend the rest of my years getting to know her better.

On top of all that, I’ve read 17 books, and am working on numbers 18 and 19. I took up nature photography, climbed a 14,000-foot mountain, and switched my skis out for a snowboard. I got to travel to Nashville and Pasadena, two cities I’d never been to before. I spent 30 days in August eating nothing but meat, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. On Christmas Day, Lacey and I adopted a 90-pound dog.

Meet Dixon. If you couldn’t tell, his head is at my hip

My 2014 was quite a ride.

On a larger scale, 2014 was tough to watch. Ebola outbreaks in Africa, riots in Ukraine, the disappearance of one Malaysia Airlines plane and another being shot down, international tensions with Russia. More violent conflict between Israel and Palestine, civil unrest in Ferguson and New York, the Taliban killing over 100 schoolchildren, and ISIS reigning untold terror across the Middle East. And those are just the big news stories.

To be sure, 2014 was a year to pray for Jesus’ coming. It was a year to ask what he’s doing in the world, to ache and grieve for the twisted hold evil seems to have on his wonderful creation. How could things go so wrong? And what can we as the Church, as agents of peace and joy, do about it?

 We need to stay on mission.

We need to remember that the battle against evil has already been won. Even though it seems to have a grip on the world, it has no chance for an eternal victory. Jesus has already defeated death, and he’s actively working behind the scenes to create good in the world.  Still, we prayerfully anticipate his second coming to establish his kingdom in its fullness.

 But that doesn’t mean we should sit on our hands.

My pastor preached a great sermon last week exploring the differences between the Gospels’ announcements of Jesus’ coming and his instruction before leaving. The accounts of Jesus’ birth make allusions to a royal birth, with the sky opening and angels singing in celebration. The long-awaited Messiah, Savior, Lord has been born. The King is here.

Rome, however, did not fall. There was no military victory, and Jesus did not take a seat on his throne in Jerusalem. Israel was not restored to their rightful place as the Chosen Nation.  This was not what the Jews expected.

Instead, Jesus told his disciples in the Gospel of John, “it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you…But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.”

At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, he gives the disciples instructions to, “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

So the great King proclaimed at the beginning of the Gospels is leaving his final instructions with a bunch of common folk? Fishermen and tax collectors? He’s trusting a bunch of Regular Joes with a task of cosmic significance?

Basically what it boils down to is this: Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit to continue the mission he started. He’s coming to establish his kingdom in its fullness, but he’s given us the task of preparing the way.

We prepare the way by proclaiming the Gospel. We prepare the way by loving God and loving others. We prepare the way by being agents of peace. We prepare the way by caring for the poor. By advocating for justice. By forgiving as we’ve been forgiven. By living joyfully no matter our circumstances, because our source of joy is outside of circumstance.

2015 will have its own set of difficulties, whether in our personal lives or in the world news briefs. Unless Jesus returns, there will be more shootings, more bombings, more injustice, more crime. It’s our job to stay on mission. Jesus is with us through his Spirit, and we’ve been tasked with being the light to the nations that Old Testament Israel couldn’t be.

My hope for this year is that as a Church we’re more disciplined with staying on mission through the mundane. I hope we form the habit of doing the little things that God wants us to do, and if we feel called, I hope we have the courage to do the big things he wants us to do.

So here’s to 2015. Let’s lay some Kingdom Bricks.

• Dogs
• Jesus