Enjoyment

          Today for the first time in a long while, I am on a plane bound to New York.  It’s been a long time since I spent extended time in this great city, and much has happened since then.  Back in 2006 I had the privilege of working on a project in the heart of Manhattan.  That summer was a beautiful and strange time in my life.  I had no way of knowing at the time, but in a lot of ways, it was the beginning of a great journey that has brought me to a place I never would have imagined and has taken a course that I could have never predicted.  There have been many twists and turns along the way, there have been some tough times, but mostly looking back there have been some very beautiful and very unique things that have risen from the ashes that in some strange mysterious way have shaped my life.  At the moments in life where things take a sudden turn it’s easy to feel like we’ve lost something or something has been taken away…but it turns out, nothing’s lost, we’re just being given something different, a different way forward, a new greater gift…it just takes a little time to see it with clarity.

That same summer I began to diligently chronicle my life via written word, the most prevalent relics are a series of letters I wrote to myself to serve as a compass of sorts to always point myself home.  To this day there some of the most cherished pieces I have penned, even despite that they have never been shared with another soul. 

On the plane ride in to NY I read the first installment in the series of letters that I have written annually around my birthday.  In 2006 it turns out I thought I had reached some point of epiphany in my young life.  I thought for the first time it looked like everything was coming together in beautiful, simple harmony, but man was I wrong.  I had this expectation and hope for the course my life was on, but it seemed the Lord had some very special and very different plans.  I am probably being melodramatic, but at the time it wasn’t the most comfortable process to let the Lord loosen my grip on just about every aspect of this life.  My relationships, my career, my dreams, my fears, every thread of who I thought I was has since then undergone some sort of radical transformation in to something far greater than I would have dared to dream.  It is almost as if that first letter in 2006 was a ticket to a wild ride that I’ve been on ever since.  Maybe the ride started far earlier and I simply don’t possess a mechanism to recall the steep slopes I’ve traversed, but nevertheless, all I know is that regardless of when the ride started, it’s been amazing.

It’s almost comical how the Lord used the shattering of my expectations for him to reveal himself as something greater.  But for this I couldn’t be more thankful, I think part of me might have crafted a safer tamer God, a smoother less bumpy ride if given the choice, but it turns out that if I got my way I’d have something far less spectacular.  What’s odd is I don’t feel like I’ve ever really set the bar too low or hedged my bets in terms of the way I hope, dream, and love.  Looking back however, it seems like I was being lead to have a notion of love that is bigger still (and getting bigger all the time).  I’m thankful the path I’ve been on hasn’t met my expectations but rather it’s shaped my expectations into something more wild and free.  It just so turns out I needed that over the past few years, and it’s done a wonderful number on me.   Man, am I glad the Lord is in the business of meeting my needs not bowing to my expectations…because the two are vastly different beasts.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the Westminster Catechism of Faith, which states that the chief end of man is “To glorify God and enjoy him forever…”.  The thing that always strikes me as profound is how our enjoyment is paramount in this lifetime.  In some sort of odd way, a lot of the circumstantial questions in my life are largely unresolved, but yet somehow over the years I’ve found a new, different kind of peace about all the stuff that society tells me I have to “figure out”.  Maybe this is the very enjoyment we’re called to seek out.  Whether we’re given moments of certainty or mystery, stability or chaos, war or peace, we’re given moments…and regardless of the circumstantial anatomy of what we get, it is my deepest and truest belief that they’re all gifts.  And once we view them as such, there is a transformative power we receive that allows us to steward and enjoy all our moments in newer richer ways.  It's a very hand to mouth way to live, but only when we stop worrying about where the next meal comes from will we then allow ourselves to savor the richness and flavors of the meal we have today.  Stranger still seems to be the fact that the moments which I find myself immersed in deepest enjoyment tend to be the moments where God is most glorified…turns out they’re one and the same.  A beautiful marriage of glory and joy.

In any case, it’s good to be here now, to savor this city, to savor the strangers and the pace, the bigness of it all and to remember the intricate design that’s played out over the past years.  While I’ve always felt like a sojourner in this town, it’s familiar enough to hold a key which unlocks some wonderful memories.  I look forward to the days ahead, yet not too far ahead, just taking each moment as a gift and doing what I can to light up the darkness.

CP