What I would like for the new year, is to stop thinking, “I would like this to happen,” or “I would like that to change,” and to actually be proactive and deliberate in making the change. I need to stop over thinking everything, and really start living my life — not as a way to gain recognition or garner a larger following on social media, not as a way to make the world perceive me in a certain light — but simply in order to live as close to the Father as I possibly can. I want to live like Him, to be like Him, not for the approval of man but of God.
What I really want to do this year, is live according to who God is calling me to be. It’s not only foolish and futile to live for man’s approval, it is tiring. One day you’re growing your hair out, the next your cutting it short, the next you’re telling yourself you’ll spend more time in the gym, the next you’re dressing this way rather than that way, the next you’re talking like her, the next you’re thinking like him, the next you’re behaving like them all — the masses of sheep all claiming to be individuals, all chasing after the more popular little lamb. We’re sheep, we really are. This isn’t a bad thing, it just means that by nature, we want to follow someone. It’s just a matter of who you follow, whose approval you’re seeking with the way you live, the way you style your hair and dress yourself. We end up changing every aspect of who we are just to get the attention of those who are secretly doing the same thing for someone else, yet calling you to follow them. I don’t want to allow my life to be dictated by the endless stream of people still unable to figure out who they are.
As 2016 begins and I start a new chapter of my life, I need to keep in mind that I’m not writing my story: God is. God has had a plan for me since before I was born, a wonderful plan meant to bring me joy, peace, fulfillment and prosperity in His Kingdom. And not merely as a means to make me happy, but to glorify His name. Because this life was always meant for more than satisfying our immediate cravings. We only experience true joy and lasting satisfaction when we are doing the will of God; living out every aspect of our lives to please Him. Worship isn’t just going to church on Sunday morning and singing praises; worship is doing all things with an intentionality that comes from knowing that everything you do, is made possible by the enabling grace of our loving Father. So I can sit here next to the wood stove in the basement listening to music from The Lord of the Rings, and know that through enjoying this simple moment, I am glorifying my God. You don’t have to be climbing mountains or standing on some lonely road in the middle of nowhere to have an adventure — God means our whole lives to be an adventure, a beautiful, continual discovery of His majesty throughout all of creation, and our enjoyment of all that He gives us. Our confidence can be in nothing if it is not in Him.
That’s where I want to place my confidence: in the living God. From Him do I desire to find my being. And I haven’t been doing that lately. I’ve been chasing after girls, or at least the idea of them; I’ve been trying to be better at things in order to be proud of myself; I’ve been spending my time tearing myself down for my failures rather than looking up at Christ’s successes. I’ve been looking at myself, not at Jesus — and that’s always a mistake. I have no problem admitting that my life has been full of mistakes, and I’m sure that I’ll be making plenty more before I go Home. Rejecting reality doesn’t change it, but accepting it as it is does mean having the opportunity to make a change. I know I’ve been doing wrong. I want to start doing right. Not by merely trying hard, but by looking to Jesus, the one who has already won the battle. I want to live and walk so near to Jesus all the time that I’m constantly in His shadow. Wouldn’t that be something: to be so near to Jesus that when someone looks for you, they don’t even see you, but they find Him.
This wasn’t the most well-formed essay, but that’s okay. Honestly I think I’ll be writing in this way more often. Because it isn’t about attracting attention to myself, but pointing to my Saviour; in the way I write, speak, walk, live. When you look at my life, do you see Christ? Because that’s what I really want. For every day of 2016, and every year after.
— Joel