Epiphany: Reflection Before Resolution
This past weekend, after the children left and the house got quiet, I took some time for reflection. I fought the urge to jump straight into planning for the New Year (which is more fun), and forced myself to answer some questions about last year. I began this practice of looking back on the year more than two decades ago when I was raising two school-aged children and living life at what felt like a breakneck pace. The resistance to it meets me every year, and though it has not gotten easier, experience has taught me that it’s worth pushing through.
Back then, we would go to the country for a few days around New Years. No TV, no electronics, just campfires, four-wheelers, fishing, puzzles, and books. Though we often took the children’s friends along or were joined by cousins when we went to the country, this New Year’s get-away was always just the four of us, a family team meeting of sorts, a way to catch our breath as our own little family. I would force the four of us to name some “Best Moment of the Year” or “One Goal for Next Year” as we burned marshmallows on coat hangers over an open fire. During the afternoons, while the kids roamed the woods, feed peppermint sticks to donkeys, or sling mud with four wheelers I sat on the screened porch and read my previous year’s journal. I also began asking God to me a word to live into each year. I’m not talking about anything prophetic here, more like a key word in bold print from a 5th grade social studies textbook. Some of them have been inviting and beautiful - like simplicity or spaciousness or secrecy. Others have been terrifying - like relinquishment or deliverance.
There’s a reason spiritual practices are also called spiritual disciplines. Reflection is one that takes discipline for me. Looking backwards is often hard and painful. Perhaps an illusion I’m holding onto will be shattered. Truth sets me free, but there is usually a battle involved in delivering captives. Maybe there is grief work to be done that I’ve outrun all year long and reflection will require naming and feeling those emotions. I might need to acknowledge a situation I’d rather pretend did not exist. But pretending your house is built on a rock when it’s really on sand is dangerous when the storms come.
Resolutions feel good…for the moment. I can dream, imagine, hope, and tell myself how different it will be this year because I have resolved! But without some reflection, the same old me (with blinders on) will step into 2022.
When the fear and aversion to this practice set in, I remind myself of a few really good things Jesus said, like The truth will set you free (John 8:32) and I am with you always (Matt. 28:20). I remember he promised the Holy Spirit as comforter, advocate and guide (John 14:26) who would lead us into all truth (John 16:13). I don’t go alone to the hard parts of last year. I don’t go alone to the destruction of my illusions or the naming of my emotions. I go with Him. He goes with me. He is here and there - in my past and in my present. We can look at the past together and He can give me his perspective on what we see. He might even remind me that he is making all things new… (Rev. 21:5) including me.
This year to jumpstart my reflection, I used Emily P. Freeman’s “Questions for Reflection and Discernment,” a free download available in the show notes of her podcast “The Next Right Thing.”
As I moved through the ten questions and four things to name before moving forward in my new year, I kept thinking about what we teach young children: Look both ways before crossing the street. Those are fundamental instructions we give our children for their safety. We say it over and over until we’re confident that it’s become an automatic practice for them, that even without our reminders, they will indeed look both ways before stepping into the street. Maybe we should also be teaching Look Backwards Before You Move Forward. Reflection is fundamental to our emotional and spiritual health. M. Scott Peck says, A” life of total dedication to the truth also means a life of willingness to be personally challenged.” This seems to be that same “Be Willing to Let Your Life Change” message God brought me through Grizzly in 2018.
Jesus claimed that he was the Truth and that his Spirit would lead us into all truth. A life of commitment to truth means a life committed to him which means challenge and change. He does not allow us to keep our heads in the sand or our hands in cuffs. He offers freedom and wholeness but only on the other side of facing the truth of Him and ourselves. Today is the Epiphany: The celebration of Christ being made made known to the Gentiles. The three kings were sent by Herod to find Jesus. The encounter with Truth invited them to reflect: Would they go home by the same road they had come? Would they go back to serving Herod? They didn’t. What they saw and experienced changed them. They resolved to go home “by another road.” If I resolve anything at all for 2022, I think it will be to pursue Truth, to kneel before Truth, to give my gifts to Truth, and if need be, to go home by another road.
