Train of Thought
The Week January 7-13, 2013

The New Year is out of the gate and off to the races.

How many of your New Year’s resolutions have you abandoned?

Our covenant relationship with God is of the sort that periodic renewals can be a good thing, as we see in various places in the Old Testament. The New Covenant is a permanent arrangement, it’s true, but we can always improve our own participation in it. Now’s as good a time as any to review your progress with the Lord, assess your current status, and set some new goals for the year to come.

Of course, you’ll want to focus first of all on growing in the Lord, becoming more like Jesus by spending more time with Him and learning to know Him better from both books of divine revelation – the book of Scripture and the book of creation. The glory of God is there in the creation for us to observe, delight in, and declare, but we have to apply ourselves to it, struggling through the obscurity of familiarity like the dawn of a new day, straining to break through the clouds.

We’ll also want to improve in the wisdom of the Lord in the year to come. Perhaps we need to be more truthful with others, to use our speech in more edifying ways, to engage the culture of our lives in more God-honoring ways, or to show more concern for the needs of others. Set some goals that will stretch you beyond where you’ve ever been; dare to be an overachiever for the Lord in the year to come. If you’re a pastor, covenant with the Lord to make better use of all the resources in His tool kit for building-up the local church in unity and maturity.

This might also be the year that you learn to live more completely in the unseen world of Christ, the angels, and all the saints who have gone before us. Faith, we recall, is both the assurance of things hoped for – the glory of Christ day by day – and the evidence – in changed lives – of things not seen.

God holds firmly to us in His covenant. His grasp could not be tighter, His commitment could not be more sure, and His provision can only abound even more and more in the year ahead.

He can’t improve His covenant relationship with us, but we can improve ours with Him.

And we should do so, every day, in every way we can. Don’t let the devil rob you of the greatest thing in the world by convincing you to settle for less. There is glory in growing closer to the Lord and living more fully for Him, and it’s for glory that we have been redeemed (Rom. 5.1, 2).

Song of the Crows

A raucous oratorio offends
the cold, gray morning air, a chorus loud
and grating, such that other birds are cowed
to silence – neither hawk nor cardinal sends
out its familiar call, no jay extends
his morning greeting. Other birds, too proud,
perhaps, to mix their voice with this dark crowd
of squawkers, bide their time. It never ends,
but pauses only briefly, then begins
again. The choristers seem fairly wowed
by their performance – a score (as I allowed)
composed by John Cage for these cawing friends.
  The beauty of their dark cacophony
  evokes a smile and offers hope to me.

T. M. Moore, Principal
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