I’ve touched on this subject before. A while ago I wrote about how beneficial journaling has been to me over the years, while more recently I wrote about the way that the past can ambush you and make you feel irrationally discouraged.
When I say that the past can ambush you, it’s really your memory of the past that is doing the ambushing, and your memory is pretty good at lying. A year or so after I started journaling I decided that I would set myself a task in response to what God was doing in my life at that time. I made a list of all the Bible passages I could find that related to the topic of ‘suffering’, and decided I’d study them. By that, I mean I spent a week on each passage (regardless of length) and jotted down my thoughts and conclusions on how it related to the subject at hand. I took some time off in the middle of it all somewhere, but in two and a half years I had applied this method of study to 72 different passages from the Bible.
Recently, I’ve been revisiting those passages and my studies. Like most things that we did when we were younger, there’s a bit of embarassment in facing up to it. I didn’t really understand much when then, but I thought I did. The difference now is that I know I don’t. But still, there’s some good stuff in there, and this time I find myself being ambushed by unexpected wisdom. When I remember those days, my memory doesn’t always paint me in a particularly good light. When I actually read what was going on, and not just remember it, I surprise myself. God has always believed in me more than I have.
However, the cherry/icing/giant sparkler on the cake was on the very first page. Before I began the studies, I wrote a little introduction explaining what I was doing and what my goals were – and that stuff is excellent. I mean, what I hoped for and desired 24 years ago is pretty much unchanged from what I hope for and desire now. It almost brought a tear to my eye to read how earnest young James was, and how much of young James is still here in the heart of old(er) James. And it encouraged me, because it made me realise that – despite my youth and the things I wrote that are a million miles away from what I would write or think now – there was a solid, unbreakable core in that fragile young man, and that core would carry me all the way through the years, half-way across the the world and back again, to where I am now…and that same passion is what will carry me the rest of the way. It was a surprise to me, but God’s always known.
