"Don't talk to God like that; He isn't your buddy! God is HOLY!" Those were the words that belted from my childhood Sunday school teacher just after I uttered the word "dude" during a prayer. Depending on your experience with church, speaking to God like a friend might make you a little uncomfortable. It's easy to think that a casual friendliness with God stands in opposition to His vastness, holiness, or majesty. I mean, should you call God "dude"? If you are 31 years old like me, should you call anyone dude? We won't go there right now. But what if God's holiness informs our friendship with Him? What if it is because of majesty that we can be near?

I wouldn't refer to myself as an expert on something, though my propensity for overthinking is one I've mastered. Choosing to be deeply involved in community, parenting four and five-year-old boys, and always seeking moments to engage and connect with others can leave me in a space to overthink every word, feeling, and interaction. Finding myself in the grips of overthinking also turns inward, which has made engaging in the process of the personal retreat and My One Word a unique challenge for me.

This afternoon I got the mail and had a reminder that my driver's license was expiring next month – what a blessing. I get to go to the DMV, stand in line, and take a new picture. Currently, I have long, curly hair down to the middle of my back and a 5 o'clock shadow, looking scruffy, while my current license picture is the exact opposite. My hair is short, styled with gel, and I am wearing a shirt and tie. I was 28 then, and now I am 35, almost 36.

I was talking to a friend of mine early in January, and we discussed New Year's resolutions. She asked me what my word was for the year, and I explained that I had chosen “consistency.” And I know you might be thinking exactly what she thought, "Well, what do you want to be consistent in?" I looked at her and responded, "Everything."

My word for 2022 was MAKE. I chose it because the word involves taking action in any context. Make a connection, make a difference, make something, intentional. I am an idea guy. I love thinking about possibilities and what could be. I doodle constantly and always keep a sketchbook with me to jot down ideas and make drawings of things that could be. This is my comfort zone because, if the idea exists in my head or as a simple sketch, it is safe and there is no danger of it being exposed and criticized. My challenge is moving beyond the idea and making something that can be shared with others.

There are a lot of things in life that raise our blood pressure, cause concern, and produce anxiety. You know what I’m talking about. As we walk through life, we often feel an angst about the way things are going versus the way we think they should be, and our stress level rises. We feel such a weight as we evaluate all that is going on in our life and we seek to make things better.

In 2020, my wife and I found ourselves wrestling with two of our children sharing significant questions and doubts about their faith. They struggled to see how God fit into their lives. This news shook us; we worried and questioned whether we had failed in raising our kids. Yet, instead of seeking God amid the tension, we relied upon our strength and ability to be "better" parents.

My word this past year was WILLING. I'm not sure why, but it has challenged and stretched me further than any previous words have. I chose the word based on a quote from Paul Tripp. He says, "Love is the willingness to have less free time, less sleep, and a busier schedule in order to be faithful to what God has called you to be and to do as a spouse, parent, neighbor, etc." 

As I took time to reflect on 2022 through the Personal Retreat, one theme that stood out to me was family. My most joy-filled memories of the year involved my family, but so did some of the most difficult challenges. I cherish the opportunities I had to love and serve my family this year, but remembering the loss of loved ones is still hard to process. Bottom line, family means a lot to me.

“I’m not afraid to pull the big sister card, if I have to.” As I sat with a friend, eating tacos at our favorite local spot, I found myself saying these words. This was January of 2022, and I was in the process of figuring out My One Word for the year. I went through a series of words, but nothing felt quite right. The word “sister” had been on the list of words I was praying through but I didn’t understand why or what that meant for me.

Wrestling with anxious thoughts is a large part of my story. Being anxious about nothing seems impossible with a brain full of "what if" thoughts and scenarios. If I'm being honest, many of my words over the years centered on fixing myself in hopes that my anxious brain would finally get some rest. I believed that change would come by having the correct thought pattern and just white-knuckling my way through the rest.

To say that 2020 and 2021 were tough years for our world is a gross understatement. We all found ourselves navigating uncharted waters. For those of us who are extroverts, being isolated and removed from social settings was extraordinarily difficult. If you are an extrovert much of your energy is gained from being around other people, and when that gets removed, you find yourself with little to no wind in your sails. That was me…feeling alone at sea.

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?" Isaiah 43:19

It's time to choose a new word for the new year! This is one of my favorite practices and helps me see what God is doing in my life and how He continues to shape me. Looking back at prior years, I love seeing how the thread of my words weaves together. That's the cool thing about My One Word: it's not simply selecting a new word and discarding the old. Instead, previous words prepare us for what lies ahead.

As we near the end of this retreat experience, chances are good, a host of emotions have made an appearance - joy mixed with disappointment, awe alongside angst, regrets amid hopefulness, and confusion with bits of contentment and clarity mixed together. Taking a step back and reflecting on the condition of our hearts and souls awoke feelings and experiences that have remained dormant, overlooked, or disregarded. There was growth worth celebrating and reminders of God's faithfulness, circumstances whose impact would've been shortchanged if we didn't slow long enough to notice. This time of reflection perhaps brought to the surface blind spots and patterns that keep us stuck in a cycle. 

We engage in the spiritual practices of stillness, prayer, and reflection not to shed more light on ourselves but to see ourselves in light of who Christ calls us to be and the full life He invites us to experience if we trust Him. Christ's love is abundant and never runs empty, so we are free to give it away.

God wired us for relationships, but for connections to flourish, they need the safety of love. The deepest parts of our souls long for this type of connection while fearing the authenticity and investment it demands. There's an inherent vulnerability in knowing someone else and, in turn, being known by them. Without trust, we resist sharing our true selves; unfortunately, due to the brokenness of this world we navigate our connections guarded and suspicious. Our capacity to give love to others hinges on our ability first to receive God's love for ourselves.

The expression of our lives flows from the condition of our hearts. What gets formed on the inside eventually expresses itself on the outside. We all experience times when our actions and words don't align with what we believe or who we are. It catches us off-guard, and we wonder, "Where did that come from?"

As we prepare to celebrate the beginning of a new year, we must be faithful to finish this one. So, rather than rushing to the future, we start by reflecting on the past and remembering. There were things we encountered that brought joy and others that prompted tears - circumstances that evoked celebration and contentment while others elicited pain and loss. Every encounter left a mark; every experience left us different in some way. Yet, all of it, both the good and the bad, mattered because God wastes nothing.

Over the course of the past four weeks, we’ve slowed down during the holiday season to reflect on Jesus Christ. Doing so was intentional because understanding Christ more clearly provides us with an enduring hope as we reside in the space between His arrival and eventual return. It enables us to celebrate both the baby in a manger, and the man who preached love and forgiveness who then ultimately lived it out by heading to the cross, the empty tomb, His defeat of death and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It also provides us with strength to abide in Christ’s love as we continue to walk in faith and obedience, bringing His Kingdom to earth in the places around us. Finally, it deepens our longings for His return when everything will be made right, and it is this final promise that concludes our time together this advent season.

Rest for our souls, the burden of worry lifted, and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. These are some of the unfathomable and gracious promises Jesus declared over us. Yet, to experience the depth of these promises requires us to embrace another - Christ’s abiding love. It serves as the source we draw from over and over again - knowing it never returns empty. But, what does it look like to abide in the promise of Christ’s love? This is what we want to explore during our time together.