Dear Co-pilgrim,
If you are alive to read this, then wish you a happy new day. We ought to be grateful for each day that we are alive, that is one of the many lessons we learnt as a humanity in 2020. The Holy Bible says, that “..He(God) Himself gives to all mankind life and breath and breath and everything else”(Acts 17:24-25). We are all beneficiaries of this eternally generous & benevolent God – our Creator.
We are now well past a week into the New year, and what can be a better time than this to clear the spiritual fog off of our eyes and set our vision on things that will reap not only annual benefits but eternal. While the pursuit of perpetual novelty is the default setting in the human heart, the secret to finding it, is not in the endless pursuit of the unknown but, is very much in the disciplined path of the known. Call them resolutions or whatever you may want to, but these truths are time tested and history proven. They are as old as the earth, as reliable as gravity and as unshakable as the universe. These seemingly simple desires and disciplines of our heart, when left unguarded and unattended to become the reasons for a believer’s backsliding. None of us can change the year that’s gone by, but we can work and end the new year well with the Lord’s help.
1. REVELATION - LET YOUR DAY BEGIN WITH GOD’S REVELATION
In our media ransacked world where “everything (seemingly) demands our attention”, we will find it hard to discipline ourselves to seek God by setting time aside to study and apply His Word to our lives. However, if you don’t take the time to set this discipline right in your life, then you are planning on losing a million battles. Knowing God is not a part of life, it is life and eternal life (read the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ in John 17:3). Let us learn to turn away each day from those wild and unruly deceptive thoughts that wait at the door of our heart and mind to pounce on us as soon as we wake up. Go straight to the Lord and seek His face in His Word and spend devoted time in prayer. If praying and seeking God was the most important thing for Jesus in His day (Mark 1:35), how much more important it ought to be for us. To know God is everything in life, EVERYTHING.
2. RELATIONSHIPS - THE MOST IMPORTANT PERSON IN YOUR LIFE IS YOURSELF – GROW EACH DAY IN KNOWING YOURSELF
After God, the most important person you need to know, love, relate to and nurture is yourself. For out of this grows our attitude and approach to every other relationship. Not many give enough thought to getting to know themselves, but the Scripture lays a great emphasis on it. Who we are is determinative of what we do. Our actions are a reflection of the attitudes of our heart. So how does one get to his/her self? Here’s the answer. “The purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.” (Proverbs 20:5). “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” (Proverbs 9:10). Look at the connection between the two verses mentioned above. “The man of understanding alone knows the the purposes in his own heart and in the heart of another” and that “understanding” is a result of “the Knowledge of the Holy One”. There’s no shortcut dear friend to knowing yourself. For otherwise our Maker would’ve made it abundantly clear. So, do it the way the Lord commanded us to. The more you begin to know the Lord, the more you will able to know yourself in the light of who He is and why He made you and saved you. The greatest command the Lord Jesus Christ gave us is to “Love God with all that you are and to love your neighbour as yourself”. Remember it is an eternal triangle: God, me and my neighbour. We can’t and won’t be able to love those whom God placed in our lives, unless we get to know ourselves.
3. RESOURCES – WHO YOU ARE MUST PRECEDED AND DETERMINE WHAT YOU DO AND NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND
God is a worker and a great worker. None works like Him. The very first thing He wrote in His Word is about His work: creation, and the rest of the Holy Bible is about His new creation in Christ. As people who know Jesus as our Saving Lord, we ought to grow into His likeness in our spheres of work. Listen to the words of the wise man, “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.” (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13). Whatever you are, be it a student or an employee, heed to the wisdom of God’s Word: “take pleasure in all your toil”. Remember you working hard and finding satisfaction, is God’s gift to you, as much as it is your worship unto the Lord. “You”, are not what you “do”. You “do”, whatever you do, because of “who you are”. Your work doesn’t define you, rather you define your work, because God gave you eternal life in His Son Jesus Christ. You are a child of God, working in God’s world reflecting God’s glory. Go to college/ work to show what God is doing in your life by enjoying God given resources while you become a resourceful person to all those who meet you.
4. REFLECTION – PROBABLY THIS IS THE BEST WAY TO END THE DAY
Has the phone taken our freedom away? How on earth is it that we don’t have the time to reflect anymore? To reflect is to review the day with God being your audience and Judge, and you being the spectator-participant at the same time. It is an attitude of revering the Lord because you value the relationships and resources He entrusted to you, and now you want to know how you fared through the day. “Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord.” (Psalm 4:4-5). It is this kind of reflecting and pondering in our hearts with the help of the Holy Spirit that enables us to offer the right sacrifices and put our trust in the LORD. We repent of our sins and we rejoice in His everlasting mercies and we receive His grace for our pilgrimage. Take time to sow and nurture this habit.
Will we be alive to see another year? If by His grace, we are, will we be people to whom the Lord can entrust more joy of His revelation, relationships and resources? May the Lord help us do so.
Yours-in-pilgrimage,
Cyril Nehemiah