Begin Again
As we begin a new year and I don’t know about you, but there is something special about a new beginning, a fresh start, a second chance.
Every new year is God’s way of reminding us that we get to begin again. That His mercies are new every morning. That the year before us can be different than the year behind us. And it’s my prayer for you and for me that as we enter into 2023 we will be drawn towards deeper faith, hope, and love.
But how do you do that?
More often than not many of us feel like we’re just trying to keep all the plates spinning. We’re juggling our schedules and our kids activities. Between work, family and all the things we’ve said, “YES,” to we have no margin in our lives. Sometimes, it feels like all those plates are spinning out of control and we’re worried about what happens when they come crashing down.
But what if they didn’t have to?
What if there was a better way to live? A different way to live?
And what if the key to living the life we most deeply desire, the life our soul longs for, has more to do with what is at the CENTER of our life than it has to do with the number of plates we’re spinning?
What is at the CENTER of your life?
Several years ago our family was at the beach on vacation and this particular beach was one of those places where everyone rented bikes and rode bikes everywhere in this little beach community.
At this point, my son Will hadn’t learned how to ride a bike yet and I thought… this is a great opportunity. We’re on vacation. I’ve got time to teach him. We can rent him a bike and there are plenty of places to ride bikes here and it’s safe and it’ll be fun.
So I told him, “Hey bud… you know, you’ve got a birthday coming up and if you learn to ride this bike I’ll take you to the store and you can pick out any bike you want for your birthday!”
He was excited. I was excited. We go one morning to one of these bike rental places and pick out the perfect bike for him to learn and off we go.
You know how this works… when your kid is learning to ride a bike they don’t want you to let go. They’re trying to find their balance, their center of gravity, and until they do they don’t have the confidence for you to let go so they can take off. And even once they kinda sorta find it, they want you to stay close.
So for the better part of the day I was running beside and behind Will. As long as I was close, he had the courage to keep going. But if it felt like at any moment that his father was too far away, he would become afraid.
Unable to Find Our Center
For many of us our lives feel out of balance, like we can’t find our center of gravity.
It’s like we’re that kid on the bicycle shaking and wobbling left and right. The truth is we can’t take off… we can’t live the life we were intended to live… because we can’t find our balance. Because we can’t find our center of gravity.
Why is that? Why is it so hard sometimes to find our center of gravity?
It may be because the gravitational pull of the world is away from center.
We live in a world that knows and understands what we need and also knows how to fill that need with something that won’t last, won’t satisfy, and will ultimately leave us empty and worse off than we were before.
Just think about it… whatever temptation it is you struggle with most, whatever bad habit you’re hoping to break this year, whatever it is you want to change about yourself in 2023, the reason it is so hard to overcome, to break that habit, to make that change is because you have a need, there is a void in your life that wants to be filled, and the world has something to offer you in that moment of need.
Many times what we the world offers is quick, easy, and it provides temporary relief. But it often comes with the price tag of shame and guilt. You don’t have to pay the price until later, but when you do you discover that the cost was greater than you anticipated and the pain is often more than you can bear.
It’s like we’re a kid again riding that bike down the street and we’re shaking and wobbling and it feels like at any moment we’re going to fall and hit the concrete below.
But what scares us most is that we look around and it feels like our FATHER is nowhere to be found.
Centered Uncentered
When our lives are off center, out of balance, it often feels like God is far away.
If you’ve ever felt that way or maybe you feel that way today… I’ve got some good news. You are not alone. And… God is closer than you think.
One of the most famous people outside of Jesus in all of scripture is a man by the name of David. If you know anything about the life of David then you know that there were many points in his life where his life was CENTERED on God.
As a young boy he was anointed king by Samuel who was a great prophet of God. He was known for killing Goliath, conquering the Philistines, and bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem.
But… there were many points in his life when his life was NOT CENTERED on God.
He was also known for the murder of a man named Uriah. He had him killed because he wanted his wife, Bathsheba. He failed numerous times as a father and as a king. And that’s putting it mildly.
However, David was known as a man after God’s own heart.
At the Center of it All
Many of the psalms were written by David. Almost everyone knows his words from Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”
That psalm along with many others have carried a lot of people through many dark and difficult times. But today I want to invite you into what David writes here in Psalm 103.1-2 (ESV)…
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
2 Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits…
Here’s what’s interesting about these first two verses of Psalm 103.
If you take the entire Bible and open it up to the very CENTER, if you start verse by verse from the beginning in Genesis chapter 1 and if you work your way backward from Revelation 22 verse by verse, line by line, you’ll come to the very CENTER of all of scripture and right in the middle of the Bible, right in the middle of all of scripture are these 2 verses!
What is at the very heart of scripture? WORSHIP!
What is in the very middle of your Bible? A song of PRAISE!
What is at the center of the word of God? BLESSING!
Is it any coincidence that these two verses are at the very center of scripture? Some may think it’s coincidence, but I’m going to believe it’s the PROVIDENCE of God that put worship, praise, and blessing right in the CENTER of scripture as a reminder that this should be what is at the CENTER of our lives.
Think about the life of David, the author of these words, when David centered his life on God he was able to defeat lions, tigers, bears, and GIANTS like Goliath.
That’s not to say that everything is rosy and perfect when you center your life on Christ. That’s not always the case. Bad things happen to good people. It happens all the time. But it does mean that you don’t have to lose your balance or your center of gravity when the storms of life come. When your life is centered on Jesus you can face whatever giants come your way.
Centering on the One True God
However, there were other times in David’s life when lost his center. When he lost his way. And whenever he was de-centered, his life was derailed!
Whenever David lost the lyrics to “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” whenever he forgot the words to this song he sang so often, whenever he stopped singing and stopped blessing the LORD, he stopped experiencing the blessing of God.
That’s not because God is not faithful to us. Indeed, all of us are better off than we deserve and we can all tell stories of God’s goodness even when we were faithless. Finish reading Psalm 103 and you’ll hear David thanking God for being faithful and forgiving even when we are faithless!
But when we bless the Lord, our hearts and lives are attune to the blessing of God. When you bless the Lord, he blesses you. It’s not transactional. It’s RELATIONAL!
It’s a relationship of mutual blessing.
One in which you will soon discover that you cannot out bless God!
When David prays…
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name!
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits…
He’s not just centering his life on worship, he’s centering his life on the one true God.
You might notice in your Bible that every letter in the word LORD is capitalized.
That’s the way the translators of the Bible into English let you know that in the original language, this is the name of God. Our Jewish ancestors in the faith revered the name of God so much they would neither speak it or write it. But if you read this psalm in the original Hebrew language you’ll find here the name of God:
YHWH.
David lives in a time when people worshiped a lot of different gods. At the center of the lives of so many people was something other than God. Or some other god that was not God. So David prays in contrast to the world around him declaring that our God is God alone, the sovereign God… “Bless YHWH, O my soul!”
Is God at the center of your life?
How many of you remember this commercial from years ago? The question was this, “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?”
This little boy asked several of his animal friends, but no one knew the answer. Finally, he asked his question to the wise old owl. The owl didn’t know but said, “Let’s find out!”
Then the owl started licking the boy’s Tootsie Pop. 1, 2, 3, crunch! The owl couldn’t resist… and the boy never found out how many licks it would take to get to the center.
The little boy never found out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, but he knew what was at the center. And what was at the center was good.
What’s at your center?
How do you find out what’s at the CENTER of your life? Is what is at the center of your life good? Is it God?
To be honest, that’s a more difficult question to answer than I once thought. We all have our good days and bad days, our ups and our downs. And for those of us trying really hard to be really good Christians, we beat ourselves up like crazy every time we fail.
The truth, I think, is that we are all complex people. And sometimes when we’re under pressure we don’t do what we wish we would have done. We often make mistakes, poor choices, and we often fail.
So I go back to David, a man who often failed in major ways but who is remembered to this day as a man after God’s own heart. (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22)
WHY? Not because he was perfect, not because he had it all together, not because he never made mistakes.
I think the reason David is remembered as a man after God’s own heart is because at every turn, he turned back to God.
The temptation for you as the New Year begins will be to put Jesus at the very top of your list of New Year’s Resolutions.
1: Spend time with Jesus. Read my Bible. Pray every day. Go to church!
2: Be a better husband, father. Wife, mother.
3: Eat better, Exercise.
4: Stop being disappointed when the Cowboys lose in the playoffs.
and so on…
But let me encourage you NOT to put Jesus at the top of your list, but at the CENTER of your life!
Let Jesus be the CENTER
Let Jesus be in the center of your marriage, your family, your work, your health, your decisions about how you spend your time and money and everything else.
When Jesus is at the CENTER we discover what is means to really live.
Just like when my son found his balance and his center of gravity and took off on that bike for the very first time… if you want to know what it is to live, really live, then let Jesus be your CENTER.
Just like David’s life was defined as a man after God’s own heart, you can also be known NOT for your failures and imperfections but for your pursuit of the heart of God.
Jesus came and Jesus comes even now offering you, offering us, a different life. A different way to live. Jesus himself said it when He said, “I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly!”
Jesus wants you to live and have and experience the Abundant LIFE, a Jesus Centered LIFE.
It took a little time but he figured it out. He found his balance, he found his center of gravity, and once he did he took off! And I was so proud. And I was so tired!
When we finally got back to the place we were staying that night I laid down next to Alisha exhausted. She couldn’t understand why I was so tired. So I looked at my watch curious about how many steps I had taken that day running beside Will and behind Will on that bike. To my surprise I had just run my very first half marathon! I had chased him 13 miles up and down those streets!
It’s January, so let’s begin this year by putting Jesus at the CENTER.
How?
You do that when you worship. You do that when you pray. You do that when you spend time over time in God’s word.
You do that when you invite Jesus into every relationship, every conversation. You do that when Jesus is at the center of your purpose. Invite Jesus into the center of every facet of your life.
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