I was amazed.

God had done so much.

Yet what amazed me even more was this: God had done so much that I had already forgotten.

Holy Spirit had prompted me to carve out two hours to sit and soak in our family pictures from 2013.  As I did, my heart was literally revived, remembering all the moments of Truth, Beauty and Goodness that swept us up deeper into His heart and His Life over the past year.

How quickly we forget.  Blasting forward.

Moving onto the next thing.

Always moving.

Always reaching.

So rarely pausing to absorb what He has already brought to our hearts.

John captures it brilliantly in his workbook for Desire, when he writes:

Impatience is a dangerous thing when it comes to interior journeys, spiritual quests, pilgrimages of the soul. For in these journeys we must cover the miles step-by-step, feeling the terrain as we pass through it, responding to its challenges. There is no rushing this; there are no shortcuts. But that is what makes it so beautiful and dangerous and wonderful. We don’t snap a few photos and rush on; rather, we are changed by our travels. I think C. H. Spurgeon had this in mind when he warned that a pilgrim will be better served “by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed. Little learning and much pride come of hasty reading.” Or hasty travel, we might add.

In that spirit, before moving ahead into the new, I wanted to invite you to dive into some notable blog posts from the past year.  If they are new to you, I invite you to be nourished by your God, who loves to bring personal and particular gifts to your heart as His son.  If you have visited them before, I encourage you to exercise the act of remembering.  Turning away from the “hasty reading” to which Spurgeon alludes and instead, asking the Holy Spirit to highlight a few and then drink deeply again. Savor, explore, ponder.  Let what God is saying personally to you find its home more deeply in your heart,  that you might find your home even more deeply in your God…

Enjoy.