2018: Reflect and Expect

There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:

A right time for birth and another for death,
A right time to plant and another to reap,
A right time to kill and another to heal,
A right time to destroy and another to construct,
A right time to cry and another to laugh,
A right time to lament and another to cheer,
A right time to make love and another to abstain,
A right time to embrace and another to part,
A right time to search and another to count your losses,
A right time to hold on and another to let go,
A right time to rip out and another to mend,
A right time to shut up and another to speak up,
A right time to love and another to hate,
A right time to wage war and another to make peace.

 (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

Happy New Year everyone! I hope that this post finds you all keeping your New Year’s resolutions, and that you and your family are happy and healthy. I hope you are well on your way to much success in 2018 and that this year will be bigger, better, and greater than the last.

Reflect

The scripture at the beginning of this post is the scripture that I have started off the year with every year for the greater part of the last decade. It is a passage that allows me to reflect on the fact that God has an eternal plan for each of us and there is a perfect time and place for everything in his plan.

Ecclesiastes is generally thought to have been written by Solomon in the later years of his life. Solomon had experienced all that life had to offer: wealth, power, honor, fame, and sexuality (if you haven’t ever read Song of Solomon, it’s a powerful read). By all modern day standards he had found the “happiness,” which we all seek to achieve. But interestingly enough he starts off the story of Ecclesiastes by proclaiming:

“ ‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!.’ ” (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

Chapter 3 begins with a reflection about there being a time and a place for everything in God’s plan. This is probably one of the central points that Solomon tries to make throughout the book. He seeks to teach us through his experiences at the height of success and the depth of failure, that the only true way to life’s fulfillment is to reflect on God’s plan and to live life in a way that brings honor to him.

These first verses have served at the beginning of each year to remind me that in spite of the mountains and the valleys, the joys and the heartaches of life, I can and will fulfill God’s plan in his timing if I am able to trust him with control of the circumstances of my life. He has reserved a season just for that too!

Easy, right? I used to think it was anyway!

The picture that serves as the banner of this post is our “family Christmas picture” for 2018. I had the opportunity to celebrate a week of this Christmas season with my family in South Carolina. What a treasure to have both of my grandparents on my mom’s side alive and to be able to share in this special season with them and the rest of the family. The picture looks beautiful and complete right? I sure do have a good looking family if I say so myself! (Don’t ask what a task it was to try and color coordinate that all!) But this is not at all what I expected my family Christmas picture to look like in 2017, with half of “my family” missing. For me this year’s holiday season was a varied mixture of highs and lows with moments of happiness and periods of profound sadness. It was a season that caused this period of reflection going into 2018 to be much different than the ones that preceded it. But as I reflect, I take refuge in the fact that as the scripture demonstrates, it is just a season! Moreover, even though it is not being carried out as I feel God would have intended, it is a season in which his purpose and his intention can still be fulfilled. Of course my natural first question is how? But the bigger questions is, will I trust him?

Seasons come and seasons go, some seem short and some seem long. I was reminded of this on two occasions over the last month. When I got to South Carolina for the family Christmas extravaganza the temperature outside was about 70 degrees. By the time I left a week later the temperature was in the 20s. Just this past week I went down to Champaign to see the Illinois basketball team lose a heartbreaker (#wesuck) and when I went in to the game the temperature was in the 60s and by the time I left the game the temperature was in the teens. In just a short period I had cycled through what seemed like all of the seasons. The question is not whether or not the seasons will come and go but whether or not we will have the tools, whether we will be prepared, whether we will have the courage to weather the storm. Luckily, (because admittedly I am a pack rat), I had an outfit for every season in each of these situations. Even though it wasn’t always comfortable I was able to make it through.

The Pause

As I sat and talked with my grandpa one night, he proceeded to share one of his pearls of wisdom. (Written in my best Norwegian accent….) You know Kurtis, we ought not to think about our problems too much. If we dwell on them too much it makes it worse. If it’s not in our control we can’t do anything about it anyway. We just need to keep praising the Lord and leave it in his hands. He knows the answer.

Ordinarily I take my grandpa’s advice at face value but in this moment, as I was moving through this period of reflection from 2017 into 2018 I had to pause. I had to deal with my doubt that this was wholly true because at some level I felt like that’s what got me into this season in the first place.

Those who know me would likely tell you that I am a pretty optimistic, even keel person (except for maybe when it comes to sports I can get pretty fired up). I try to look for the good in people, the silver lining in the situation. As my wife would say, “always rainbows and butterflies.” I’ve tended to have an strong “trust factor” that no matter what was happening God was in control and he would see through to another season in his plan and his time. I would try to focus on that and move through the storm.

To some looking in from the outside, I feel like maybe at times this has looked like ignorance of the situation in front of me or minimization of its significance. Perhaps it looks like a lack of understanding or failure to look outside myself.  Whatever it looks like, it feels like the very attitude that I thought was supposed to be a good thing has caused me even more pain and suffering than to lament my troubles at the outset.

The Expectation

For whatever reason, this New Year rather than stopping at verse 8 I continued on through the rest of Ecclesiastes chapter 3. As it turns out there is more to the story.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.  That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it….

So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them? (Ecclesiastes 3:11-14, 22)

 There is a season for everything. There is a time for reflection. But moving beyond that reflection is to live in the expectation that God does really have a plan for our lives. Even though we cannot always imagine in our minds what God has planned from beginning to end he has set “eternity” in our hearts and given us each a desire to seek after lasting value and enjoyment in life. He has given us an innate sense of expectation that comes with the changing seasons of our lives. However, the fulfillment of that value and expectation is only truly found in submitting ourselves to him. It is living in that expectation that we are enabled to “enjoy our work.”

The problem is we often have a myopic view and we focus on the wrong thing. We tend to focus on the problem and not the process. We see today while he is working on forever. We are focusing on the pretty wrapping paper, he is focusing on the gift inside. Your healing, your heartache, your loss, your pain, whatever your trial, he is working to make it beautiful in his time. But it’s the hard work of moving past the point of reflection to the point of expectation that we work on breakthrough. I am certainly not there yet, but I think that’s the key.

Grandpa Revisited

As I reflected on this insight I read through Paul’s exhortation to the Thessalonians:

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Then it hit me. Grandpa was right! There is one word that makes all the difference. The verse says to give thanks “in” all circumstances, not “for” all circumstances. I can face the reality that my circumstance is difficult and that I wish it were different but still give thanks and live in the expectation that God can make it different and he will see me through. I’m not giving praise for my trouble but in spite of it because he is my refuge IN time of trouble not FROM time of trouble.

I’m still learning this, and I definitely don’t have it down yet. But, I am thankful for the opportunity I have to be able to fail and to still be given grace to work on it again.

The Masterpiece

As I was driving along and listening to music while putting together my thoughts for this post I heard a song that sums up my reflection of 2017 and my expectation going into 2018.

Masterpiece- Danny Gokey

Heartbreaks a bittersweet sound
Know it well
It’s ringing in my ears
And I can’t understand
Why I’m not fixed by now
Begged and I pleaded
Take this pain but I’m still bleeding

Heart trusts you for certain
Head says it’s not working
I’m stuck here still hurting
But you tell me

You’re making a masterpiece
You shaping the soul in me
You’re moving where I can’t see
And all I am is in your hands
You’re taking me all apart
Like it was your plan from the start
To finish your work of art for all to see you’re making a masterpiece

Guess I’m your canvas
Beautiful black and blue
Painted in mercy’s hue
I don’t see past this
But you see me now
Who I’ll be then
There at the end
Standing there as

Your Masterpiece

As we move further in to 2018 will you move through your reflection and into expectation with me?

What was old he can make new. What is ahead he can see you through. What is weak he can make strong. What has slowed he can move along. What seems like its forever, is really just a season, in your every endeavor remember, God has a reason.

He’s making you his masterpiece.

Reflect and Expect that God’s intention is to fulfill his purpose for your life if you will have the courage to weather the storms. I’m not in it alone and neither are you.

Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
There it is! I’m making a road through the desert, rivers in the badlands.

(Isaiah 43:18-19 MSG)