Random 2006 reflections 1

I think I'm trying to do too much, blogging-wise, but since I don't have that many days left in the year...

I don't really know what to make of 2006. One of the reasons why my reflections are going to be random. In some ways, I don't feel like the end of the year is coming, and that 2007 is just an extension of 2006 - a 2006 (part 2). There is a sense of tiredness that doesn't seem to go away with just the flipping of the calendar.

In some ways, this year has been full of visible, significant milestones. I have

• graduated with a degree! I still can't believe it!
  
• seen my brother get married
  
• moved cities for the 3rd time in 4 years, and this time to the biggest one of them all - London!
  
• become a postgraduate student, something I never even fathomed a couple of years ago.
  
• Gone one whole calendar year (and more) without seeing Malaysia for the first time in my life
  
• worked for a charity in a worthwhile project.
  
• began considering taking my long-term future in a direction I had previously resisted before.
  
• had to learn, as it were, how to deal pastorally with 2 difficult situations as a Christian leader. (Not that the learning is anywhere near complete!)

But as I celebrate my birthday tomorrow, there is just one thing I want to reflect on in this post. I think one of the things that God has been teaching me is to display some patience. Maybe partly because of my own insecurity over the future, and also in watching some of my peers begin to take concrete steps in moving onto a definite path, I wanted to get a move on too. But God said, whoa! Don't you think you're being a little impudent!

I think this is true. Normally, the arrival of birthdays are meant to be followed by exaggerated moans about how old I'm getting, but actually, as I turn 22 tomorrow, I'm actually reflecting on how young I still am. I'm the youngest Masters student on my course. I'm the youngest in my Bible study group. And I still need to learn wisdom and maturity, and there is time to learn both (as well as more practical stuff, of course. :-p). I'm still pretty mobile at this juncture. I'm not too tied down to anywhere yet. And God is saying, steward this freedom you currently have.

Truth be told, I find that very difficult. And so maybe my one birthday request is this, a prayer offered to our Father that I will continue to learn to be repentant and to trust and follow Him. For I am a sinful man, made more alarming by the fact that I am often unaware of how hardened my own heart is. But thanks be to God, there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Amen.


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