A phrase or word for the year. I like the idea.
It suits my personality to have a goal. It feels right to live with intentionality.
...a goal? Okay, no, not exactly a goal.
Generally, the word or phrase that I have named these past years has had very little that I can "do" to accomplish them. "Goals" take much more planning and doing and "task lists" to my mind.
Okay, more like an idea. A theme. a direction. ...Just a thought of direction, really. Like an adventurer deciding to sail...?? where shall we go, where shall we go today?... "west", he decides. "Yes, due west", he might say. And, then, sets the sails accordingly.
Last year was the "Year of Presence". I wanted to venture into knowing, experiencing, growing in my ability to discern God's Presence: a "now-oriented" practiced awareness of His Presence.
This year is knowledge. And, by knowledge I definitely don't mean only head or book knowledge. (although I am sure my head and many books will add to my journey!) By the word "knowledge" I feel a sense that it has something to do with the classic "Adam knew Eve" or "Abarham knew Sarah"- kind-of knowledge. Knowing in the marital sense, really. "Knowing" as in intimacy, closeness, connectedness, and understanding.
When I married and first "knew" my husband, there was a bond and an intimacy that will never be cut-off or severed. But that was only the beginning. That "knowing" was significant and a super-glue, to be sure... but it was only the first of many steps to the continuing journey of knowing each other. Available is a daily, deeper knowledge--- if we indeed seek and search.
Now, being married these 17 years, I feel that I know my man more now than I ever did before we were married. I know him more intimately, more perfectly and with more understanding and value certainly than I did a Year 1 or even at Year 15. And, I am hopeful that this knowledge of him, my husband, will only increase and continue.
This is what I am going for this year: knowledge of the Lord. Close, intimate, deeper knowledge of my Lord. Deeper still, Stephanie. That has been the whisper. Deeper still.
I long to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord... just as Peter encourages the early church to do in his letters. I want to know Him more intimately, to study Him, to talk with Him, to hear Him and understand His tone of voice. I want to understand Him more.
I know that He is unsearchable and the depths of knowing Him are beyond tracing out! And, yet, He invites me to know Him more today than I did yesterday. And, guess what!? I can know Him more tomorrow than I do today! What a sweet invitation to relationship, to connectedness, to intimacy!
The year of knowledge.
What would your phrase, your word, your theme be? ... In what direction will you set sail this year?
This is what I ask from You, my dear Lord, to know You more.
"It is for increasing degrees of awareness that we pray, for more perfect consciousness of the Divine Presence." ~A.W.Tozer (Pursuit of God)