Everywhere you look there is design.
Upon awaking from a nap on the floor, I looked up and noticed that the chandelier had a perfect hexagon pattern - something its individual crystals had evidently hidden from me from my usual standing position.
PHOTOS: It is interesting that the pattern emerged from a "resting" position.
Is it possible for a new year to have a pattern or design? All I would have to do is to discover the format and follow it. Voila!
Of course, it’s not that simple or else we’d be like self-driving cars; robotic and lazy disciples.
In the course of a new day, there are patterns. For example, my phone tells me exactly when the sun will rise and set and the sun seems to obey my phone, uh, I mean God.
If a day has designs, why wouldn’t a year have them as well? If God knows me intimately, why wouldn’t He have crafted some very personalized tasks and character-growth for this year?
And if He’s given me a free will, why wouldn’t I want to exercise it and bring it into submission for those same goals?
Each year, I do pray about what’s ahead. Does God give me an outline-by-quarter? No. But if we were honest, each of us could press in and hear about something general enough that with time, God would put some meat to the skeleton as we step into a year of obedience.
In this sense, I borrow from Francis of Assisi: “Start by doing what’s necessary, then what is possible and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” That may be too nebulous for some, but even within this exhortation lies a design.
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: Planners and calendars are a multi-million dollar business and phone apps for the same can actually get pricey. Would that we give our year to what God has for us in such an exacting way as we do our work and play calendars? We might find that all of these events, aspirations and desires end up being as exquisitely and uniquely designed as a snowflake.
But be doers of the word…he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him…The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps…Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand…Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established…May he grant you your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans!…let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them…
James 1:22 ESV, 2Kings 18:6 ESV, Proverbs 16:9 ESV, Proverbs 19:21 ESV, Proverbs 16:3 ESV, Psalm 20:4, Hebrews 12:2 ESV, Psalm 139:16 ESV