On years…

There are years of your life, and there are years of your life.

There are years of just living, and there are years of consequence. Of growth, of pain, of stretching, and jubilation.

…years of your life, and years of your life.

I’ve been thinking about this lately – 2025 being a year of incredible consequence, joy and stretch for us.

There is something meaningful in the rhythm of “big times” and “small times”.

And this is also ancient truth. Ecclesiastes puts it this way: “For everything there is a season…”

In modern life, we’ve become divorced from the seasons and rhythms of existence.

You want a tropical mango in a freezing blizzard in London? You’ve got it!

You want all of the world’s knowledge on a little black rectangle in your pocket? Voila!

…and that’s not healthy.

There are years and there are years… And accepting that is freeing.

It lets you mourn when you should mourn…
It lets you celebrate when you should celebrate…
It lets you stretch when you should stretch…
It lets you harvest when it’s time, or accept when the harvest has failed…

…and it lets you live in the days that you are given.

It enables you to not worry about tomorrow (a wise man once said that tomorrow had enough worries of its own), but rather to let the day unfold as it unfolds.

And sometimes that unfolds in years of consequence.

…sometimes in months of sadness.
…and, often, in days of mere, but blissful, mundanity.

There are years, and there are years. And that’s a good thing.

On one’s early 20s…

I had a surreal moment driving down the highway the other day.

A song from 2008 came on, and I was suddenly struck with the vivid, tangible, memory of being in my early 20s…

You might remember it. That desire for a future you can’t quite put into words yet… A feeling of dissatisfaction and listlessness… a sense that the world doesn’t take you seriously quite as you are…

…an odd, persistent, feeling of life being a bit incomplete.

Of course, I wasn’t incomplete, and, in fact, life was pretty good… I just didn’t know it yet.

And as quick as that, the sensation passed, and I was filled with gratitude. For the love of my wife, for the joy of my two healthy sons, for a meaningful career, for “ride or die” friends, and for the graciousness of God.

This post doesn’t really have a point, but I wish that I could give 2008 me a hug and tell me that it all turns out ok…

…that I wasn’t really incomplete; I was just impatient and should enjoy the ride.

PS: what music does to your brain is wild.

On the gap between disappointment and fulfilment…

I wrote the below on Holy Saturday during the first year of the pandemic. I’ve thought about “the gap between disappointment and fulfilment” a lot since. Reproducing my original post here in full.

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Each year I am struck by what a sense of isolation and helplessness the disciples must have felt on the first Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

All they had known for years came crashing down around them. Their messiah and deliverer died an ignominious death on a Roman cross.
The disciples had in their hearts a vision of political revolution; the establishment of an earthly kingdom. But what they had before their eyes was a crucified leader.

It is easy for us now, on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, to know that we are about to celebrate the resurrection. We know that we can celebrate His death on Friday because his resurrection on Sunday is on the way.

But in that moment, the disciples knew nothing of what was to come.

They hadn’t read to the end of the book – of the victory to come. And even if they had, it was a different victory than the one they had anticipated, and they could not have comprehended, with their religious-political mindset.

But Jesus did know the end of the story. He knew of the victory to come. He knew Sunday was on the way.

Despite our strange isolation this year, we cannot really fully understand what the disciples went through on that first Easter. But we can empathise with the isolation and a sense of helplessness.

More importantly – we can remind ourselves that Jesus knows the end of the story. Isolation is not the end.

Victory – in some form or another – is on the way.

Sunday is on the way.

Sunday is on the way

Each year I am struck by what a sense of isolation and helplessness the disciples must have felt on the first Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

All they had known for years came crashing down around them. Their messiah and deliverer died an ignominious death on a Roman cross.

The disciples had in their hearts a vision of political revolution; the establishment of an earthly kingdom. But what they had before their eyes was a crucified leader.

But in that moment, the disciples knew nothing of what was to come.

But Jesus did know the end of the story. He knew of the victory to come. He knew Sunday was on the way.

Despite our strange isolation this year, we cannot really fully understand what the disciplines went through on that first Easter. But we can empathise with the isolation and a sense of helplessness.

More importantly – we can remind ourselves that Jesus knows the end of the story. Isolation is not the end. Victory – in some form or another – is on the way.

Sunday is on the way.