Happily Newly Yearly

As a writer I know better than to use too many “ly” words. I'll gladly explain to fervently studious yet naively ambitious writers that eliminating those tritely placed and descriptively unneeded extras will get rid of the superfluously posed content we often unnecessarily pen when attempting to make our writing more beautifully meaningful. Of course, what I advise others not to do, I sometimes do myself. Everybody needs an editor.

As in writing, we often see the mistakes and poor decisions others make, but seldom notice the same foibles in our own lives. Sometimes we don’t know any better. It hasn’t been that long since more experienced writers were gracious enough to educate me. But most of the time it’s just easier to inventory the faults of others than to catalog our own shortcomings.

Except for this time of year. This is when we think about how to better ourselves. We will self-improve. Auto-correct. We’ll make a plan and it will happen. We’ll lose weight. We’ll be kinder. Save more money. Give more money. Read all the way through one of those Bible-in-a-year plans. Serve at church more. Pray more. Share our faith more. We’ll be resolute. Not cowardly and inexpressively passive in proclaiming the passionately devoted and victoriously committed hope to which we seriously cling in answering the call of Christ to reach the world with the gospel.

But next week, well, you know how it will go down. Maybe you’ll eat right. You’ll keep your mouth shut when someone does you wrong. You’ll read your daily Bible chapters. You’ll talk to your neighbor about how you can’t believe another year has gone by. Maybe you’ll invite him to church. Then you’ll go inside and wonder if you should have asked him what he knows about Jesus. But surely if he wanted to know more, he’d ask. So you put it out of your mind and go eat another carrot stick. Maybe with a little onion dip on it.                                                                         

Oh, wait, I’m considering my own life here. And I’m going to be truthful about it. I will try. But I will fail. I need an editor. Not just when I write, but when I breath. When I walk out my front door. When I plan my next move. When I come up with strategically thought-out but persistently unreliable motivationally inept schemes to improve myself.

This is my life. The one I laid down since Christ gave up His life to free me from death. I’m raised to walk in newness of life with Him. I might not get it all right in this lifetime. This time next year, I’ll plan all over again. But The Editor is patient and forgiving. He knows I’m not too bright. And I know he’ll clean up this overly red-inked habitually erred manuscript I recklessly tear through page after page, year after year. Maybe by my release date, I’ll learn something. God knew all along he’d have to correct every stroke of my pen.

Happy New Year. I hope you keep your resolutions. As for me and mine, I’m not holding my trembly breath. But God willing, 2019 will carry me nearer to His flawless plan.

Happy New Year

☑ I Am Not a Robot

No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, 

but the world as it will be.    Isaac Asimov

Asimov made this statement in reference to the constant and inevitable changes reshaping our existence. Based on the realities of science springing forth from fiction, he knew we were headed for a new world. Seeing that my own fiction reports the potential human upgrades of the near future, I understand. I agree with his assumption that the wonders of science fiction are becoming the everyday way of life.

A new world is coming. We may be surrounded by transhumans when it arrives. We may have computers in our brains. We may be living far past our current life expectancy. Some may even consider death a conquered foe, for the prospect of science preserving life will bring great hope. Here is where my agreement with Asimov’s statement negotiates a major shift. Despite the pseudo faith in the god of exponential progress, those of us who wait on the Lord must know we can no longer make decisions without taking into account the world as it will be. We who follow Christ abide as the world rushes into the greatest era of man’s accomplishments, some of us mildly entertained by the whole thing.  But…

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Philippians 3:20-21

No act committed in the science lab to usher in everlasting life can compare with the transformation brought by the One True Creator. He will rescue the redeemed from the perils of this world and present us glorified, ready to live forever by the only method that ever gave any real hope of living forever. Should we not take this into account when making decisions about how we live? How we spend our time? Our money? Our talents? Our conversations?

The great men and women of science will persist in trying to conquer death. I will continue, on some level, to admire them, find amusement in their efforts, and sit amazed by what is reported. I might even make up a story or two, or three, to peruse the progression. But within the core of the stories, I’ll not forget the foolishness of the meager mind of a scientist attempting to climb the tower to meet the mind of God. As for the already completed great accomplishment of God in conquering death, I stand amazed.

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. Proverbs 19:21

In this new year, take into account the world as it will be. Not as an existence remodeled by the wonders of science, but as a creation held together by the strong force of God, who will soon bring more wondrous changes than Asimov ever imagined.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.                            2 Corinthians 5:17