Hello readers, we’ve just come through Christmas and now are heading for the new year, and in recent weeks I’ve been hoping to try and reflect and review on the year that has been for me. So this is part 1 of my years review for 2023.

It’s been a unique year for me, one I’m happy to see finish. Maybe the true value I get from it is not for now, but in years to come.

When I’ve tried to review this year and hopefully draw some value from it to go forward into the new year with… well, I haven’t been succeeding at it that well!

I’ve been trying to figure out what I learnt from this year, and my mind is totally blank. I’m sure I have learnt something, or more than learning something, I’m sure I have grown somewhat as a person and a Christian… but much like I never see the plants actually grow, and one day you’re notice that they’re grown… I think our spiritual growth is much the same.

I think there’s a difference between learning and growing. Because we’re always learning stuff, and that can actually become a copout we all perpetually resort to because it sounds good… but that doesn’t necessarily translate to spiritual growth. Because we forget easily, we repeat often, and did what we learn actually functionally change us, and was it us that changed us, or the Holy Spirit? We are in a new leaf phase of the year, and new leaves wither, but deep roots planted by the river don’t.

Leaves blow away in the wind in much the same way the chaff is carried away and gone. But I’ve noticed that trees with a good healthy root system, they don’t blow away. And even if they are chopped down, there is hope of regrowth. I was tempted to attach a photo of regrowth of a stump in this blog… because we all go through that part of our Christian life where the whole thing seems to be chopped off and all that remains is a stump. Have you ever been cut down and feel like nothing is left?

Job 14:7 “For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch thereof will not cease.”

Job 14:8 “Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;”

Job 14:9 “Yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like a plant.”

Have you got the scent of water? Do you long for the precious water of God’s word and the moving of the Holy Spirit. That’s where the regrowth will come from even after everything else had died off, the ashes of wasted life, misspent youth and a regrettable yet oft dalliance with sin.

Because I don’t see my growth at the moment. Every now and again I might get a glimpse, but is it anything meaningful. Has anything truly grown.

One book I particularly enjoyed reading and really focusing on in the second half of this year was Jeremiah. And in chapter 1, God asks Jeremiah what he sees… and Jeremiah says he sees the rod of an almond tree and God says “Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.”

Man, I feel that! Often it doesn’t seem like God’s word is actually ever happening, is ever actually fulfilled, for me at least. Oh sure, somewhere out there it is, and I read about God’s word being believed, obeyed and promises received… but I become ungrateful when it seems to not be for me.

God has dealt with this too. I recently noticed this verse in Ezekiel 12:22 “Son of man, what is that proverb that ye have in the land of Israel, saying, The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth?” It worth noting that Ezekiel’s timeline runs fairly parallel to Jeremiah, which is very interesting… but these people had a proverb which kind of encapsulates how I’ve been feeling.

How long is God going to prolong his word? Why has the vision for my life being failing so hard?

Jeremiah, for the sake of his ministry, needed to see the rod of the almond tree. He needed to see that God’s word is with power. God’s word is seed that takes root and happens… God performs it. He needed to see it at the start, because for many years he’d be preaching to a nation that didn’t see it.

Jeremiah would preach all that God told him and warn about coming judgment, but for many years, it did not come, and then it sort of came but there was a reprieve and the false prophets appeared vindicated. If you’re going to suffer for the sake of God’s word, you have to be fully convinced of its truth, even if that vindication is only going to come in time “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?”

And then I’ve been focusing on my pitiful performance… but that sure was the wrong place to look! Oh my, because then I’d really get depressed! What I need and am really totally at the mercy of is God’s performance “And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.” I need, and we all need, a performance from the Lord.

I’ve been looking for a performance. Have you been? Because I’ve found I can’t perform, I never have performed and never will. If I look at my performance not just this year, but in my life, goodness me. It’s an “F” for fail no doubt. That’s not false modesty, that’s just the truth… and an F minus at that.

But I’ve been struggling to believe also, or find this belief which enters into God’s performance. And I haven’t been able to find it within myself. I can’t believe enough. But how could I, after all “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.”

What do you think so far? The struggle is real. I think at the end of it, it’s all just the faithfulness of Christ. Even my faithfulness is pitiful, and really non existent. No wonder the Bible talks about the faith of Christ, and how he is called faithful and true. He dwells in me, and he gives me the faith, because he is mine and I am his. That’s the hope of a Christian. He’s carrying us, he’s put us on his capable shoulders, my shoulders cannot bear what only he can “And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.”

I’ve been taking things on my shoulders and sagging under the weight… when really my only hope is being laid on his shoulders. Ever heard the saying “a shoulder to cry on”? It means “someone who is willing to listen to your problems and give you sympathy, emotional support, and encouragement:” Anyone know who that might be? Could it be our “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”?

Recently I’ve found myself identifying with John 21… which begins with the phrase “after these things”. What things? Umm… the ministry, life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ… those things.

John 21 is quite an odd chapter in the unique gospel book of the Bible, because it’s almost like a prologue, or a scene that movies sometimes show after the credits. It’s like a bit of a follow-up chapter.

And in this chapter, Peter and some of the other disciples go back to fishing. Think about it… it started fishing, three years of a life changing experience of following Christ and being part of the ministry… and now they’re back fishing. How do you think they felt? You think they were a bit down and out, I mean Peter was fishing naked… that’s someone who doesn’t care anymore, that’s someone who’s lost dignity, self respect… hope. For Peter, it was allllllllll… over.

I thought about the formula for “work”, something of the VERY! few things that I remember from high school. And I remembered that “W = Fs” where “F” is for “force” and “s” is for “displacement”.

Who would have thought it, I’m not a maths or physics guy and here I am speaking a bit of it like I know what I’m talking about!

But the funny thing for me about this formula is displacement, (which is why I remembered it) which is defined as “the change in position of an object”… so how far it has moved! So if I arrive at work for the day and park in the carpark and end the day driving off in my car from the same car park… does that mean I did no work? Haha!

Maybe you’ve already seen where I’m going with this! If I was going to measure the work God has done in my life by this formula… it would seem to me like he has got exactly nothing done in my life this year, because I feel like I haven’t moved anywhere. My displacement seems to be zero. So no matter what force was applied, nothing moved, no work was done.

But I’m not alone it seems. Here in John 21, the same thing was happening.

Jesus called Peter the first time as he was fishing in the sea of Galilee… and guess what, in John 21, after everything that’s happened… and think of how much Peter was in the gospels, the healing of his wife’s mother, the seeing Jesus on the mount transfiguration, seeing the miracle of the loaves and fish, promising to fight for Christ until the end only to deny him before all…. After all that and far more… his net “displacement” seems to be zero!

He started fishing the sea of Galilee, and he’s still fishing those same waters. And not just that, but the fish aren’t biting. If I was looking for something in my fishing net this year, well I “caught nothing”. Maybe I wasn’t doing right, and there was a good chance of that. After all Jesus on the shoreline called out and said to cast on the “right side”. The reason I don’t go fishing is because fishing and not catching is not fun at all. Where’s the right side? I’m good at getting on the wrong side.

So it seems to me like the net movement in my life is zero. What a thing to write on a King James Bible blog. What a thing to write on a Christian blog. But I don’t say this to discourage you, I say this to encourage you. Think of how a book like Job is in the Bible, a book of complaints and questions about the working and character of God. Only for it only to turn all for good and better than it ever was in the end.

You reckon it looked pretty bad when Jesus was lifted upon the cross? But they didn’t count on resurrection power. I’m relying on resurrection power.

This year funnily enough it may have been the first time I ever thought about my name and the meaning of my name, I actually looked it up. But I thought about Joseph in the Bible and my life might be following him not in many ways, because I don’t have the moral integrity he had… but in terms of a dead dream and a failed vision. If I ever had a vision and dream for my life, one which I believe wasn’t tainted and corrupted by sin as so many of my past desires have been… well that dream is as dead as it ever has been right this second. So I’m writing this not as some past event having had a happily ever after… I’m writing it not having it with no promise of it other than God’s faithfulness.

I’ve been thinking about the latter end. I was reading Pilgrims Progress this year and what he wrote about “the first shall be last and last shall be first”. Just consider this quote from this amazing book “first must give place to last, because last must have his time to come: but last gives place to nothing, for there is not another to succeed” I wonder if the glory of Mr Bunyan’s last now has trumped the trials and troubles of his first. I’m sure it has, because that book is the writing of a true Christian.

I’m sorry if this blog hasn’t picked you up more, I don’t think it’s the final chapter of my year, because I’ve got some more days left! I think the best thing about the Bible is that we have a God who doesn’t play games and pretend with us. Like the good Samaritan, Jesus came to where we are. Maybe you’re not saved and you think well I wouldn’t sign up for it if it’s going to be like this. But as a Christian, there is no other way. “Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.”

If you aren’t saved, getting saved is the only way. It’s not a guarantee there will be no troubles in life, because there will be. But you will face them with the truth, with hope, with the comfort of the Holy Ghost and all the promises in the world that God had made to us in his Son Christ Jesus, in whom we believe and trust. To whom else shall we go? This world only has death to offer, but “In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” Yeah, I’ve had a year that seems to be spent a lot in the darkness, but the light is still shining in the darkness. Because Jesus Christ still shines, the bright and morningstar. May the day break not just in my life, but the lives of all my dear readers as another year approaches journey’s end. “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”

Blog 2023 2024 Bible Christian Christmas End of Year Faith God Holy Spirit Jesus Review Salvation