Learning at the feet of Jesus

Sometimes the hard years are also the sweetest.

This was a year of significant transitions and milestones.

It was a year I got healthy and conquered some health plateaus that had stopped me for the last few years.

A year of reading and study. A year that ended with a little lighter schedule and more discretionary time than I've had in 23 years.

I only blogged 30 times this year, barely half of the 60 I squeaked in last year, but still more than the previous 5 years combined. Aiming for 100 blog posts in 2020. I started 2019 planning to blog more (even started a Facebook group for the blog), but life got harder before it started to smooth out again. Hopefully, the smoothing will not be undone.

In the midst of dryness and difficulties, it became a year of sweet, sweet learning at the feet of Jesus. I've read through the Bible one and a half times this year and read countless books on studying the Bible, the Christian life, and walking the walk.

Some of these lessons still linger at the forefront of my thoughts and have been the content of much meditation in the last twelve months.

Be holy as I am holy (this popped up in a post on legalism). This phrase appears in both the Old and New Testaments, and is one we need to hear again and again to remember the standard He sets. God kept bringing this back around to me in Bible studies, books I read, sermons, etc. I can never think I've arrived as a Christian. His holiness is the standard, and the very fact of my salvation proves my reliance on Christ. 

Hate (my own) sin as much as God does. This relates to the first point. As I dove into God's holiness, sin became more putrid. Left unchecked it becomes an idol, co-reigning with Self in our hearts. The vividness of God's hatred for anything that comes before Him comes in the language of Israel's "whoring after other gods." Recently I read the book Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers, and that also gave me a fresh perspective on how offensive our sin is before God, and yet the depth of His sacrificial love He has for us.

Psalm 23 - probably the most well known psalm. One word in this much loved psalm took on fresh significance. He restores my soul. He did that in a miraculous way this year. Restored, refreshed, healed. In His perfect way, He took all the hurt and remade it. God's perfect will in recreating me became clear through weeks of wrestling through pain and through the blessing of reading It's Not Supposed to Be This Way by Lysa Terkeurst. He has experience creating from mere dust (when that's what it feels like our life has crumbled to). He is in control

even of the deconstruction and will let it go just far enough to rebuild it even stronger. I highly recommend this book for anyone struggling through a challenging season.

Prayer - Father focus. In August or so I read Fervent by Priscilla Schirer and a book called Lord, Teach Me to Pray in 28 Days by Kay Arthur. These books helped revitalize my prayer life as I remember the focus of my prayers and also the desparate need to pray continually, systematically, and with warfare in mind. Some small changes left a big mental and spiritual imprint on my prayer life.

Capturing judgmental thoughts (This actually popped up in two different posts, one on Judgmentalism and another on the Beauty of Broken). I struggle big time in this area. So hypocritical. It makes me sick. Yet, that is where my thought life plummets now and then. The Sermon on the Mount especially opened my eyes to my need for repentance in this area, but I will admit it is an ongoing process.

A year of so much spiritual growth this year. Can't wait to see what next year holds.