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How to have a truly happy new year.

For the first time in years, I don’t remember my New Year’s resolution from January. Usually, I write it down in my journal or on a note I stick to my mirror. There’s been many of those dog-eared sticky notes from years past. The year of contentment. Speaking life. We passed pancakes across the breakfast table on January 1st this year. “What do you want from 2018?” I can’t remember my answer. I know what I didn’t want though. I didn’t want to walk into her office and share the parts of my life I’m inclined to hide. I didn’t want to Facetime her the day after she delivered her baby that never breathed. I didn’t want to spend four months wondering how I’d walk into her house on Christmas day and see her empty chair. I didn’t want to go on another first date that led nowhere. We sit across from each other in a little coffee shop in Colorado, picking at a charcuterie board. “When I think about all of the things I have left to go through,” her voice cracks....

God is God is God is God.

I come home close to midnight and cook a pound of hamburger meat. Between bites of spaghetti, I ask her what she thinks about five-point this, three-point that, and all the ‘ists’ by which Christians label themselves. I keep her from her studying for an hour.
            
Together, we wonder if it would be better if we all just read the Bible and let it shape and re-shape our view of God.
            
The next morning, I read a passage of Scripture quickly. Then, I skim through categories of views. I want to figure all this out; I realize I’m scared of God being bigger than I can understand because that would make me smaller. Perhaps we attempt to shrink God (if that were possible) to fit him into our diagrams. We think the only way we can live life as a Christian is by figuring God out in our head.
            
The greatest commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27). We need our minds. Why? To love God. Not the God in the box, but the true God of the Spirit-inspired Word.
            
This phrase keeps coming back to me, breaking open the boundaries of my heart.
            
God is God is God is God is God is God.


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