On January 1st of 2022, I had decided that the verse Hebrews 12:11—speaking on discipline—was going to be the headline focus of the year for me. I am humbled that I can sit here today, the last day of 2022, and see sweet, hard, and eternally valuable lessons that the Lord has taught me.
What a wonderful privilege we have—being taught by the Great God Almighty. As Christians, we are granted the honor of sitting in the front row seat of the wisest Teacher’s classroom—the One who is All-Knowing, the Creator of all things, the One who has existed from eternity past to eternity future. We get to learn, talk to, and spend time with the Holiest, Grandest Being, and His greatest desire is to teach us! And how patiently His dealings are with you and I… willing to go over a lesson time and time again, until our feeble minds and hearts are trained in understanding more of His ways and heart.
To see the lessons we have learned, it most often takes looking at the failures that showed us there was a lesson to be learned in the first place. My sweet mom growing up was faithful in teaching me to lift my eyes off of the ugly mess of me, to Christ instead, my Redeemer… Teaching me not to get stuck in looking at my sinful self, but letting thankfulness of heart for the Grace that covers me be what lifts me to look to Christ.
“It is good for us to look at self and know how loathsome it is, but with one look at self we must take ten looks at Christ…”
As we reflect on the past year, and aspire to be better students this next, let us not look to ourselves, but to the only One who can and wants to transform and change us…not into a better version of ourselves, but into something much much greater — the image of the Perfect One who came to save us (Romans 8:28-29).
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