not yet

I stood in the middle of a street in downtown Atlanta this New Year's Eve and watched fireworks explode right after the stroke of midnight. In all the noise and smoke and sound I was thinking of several things - that I was entering 2012 as a woman more aware of God's mercy and love than the year before, that my favorite part about fireworks is that anticipation of not knowing if the show is over or if another burst of color will ignite over your head, and that I had truly no idea what the coming year is going to look like in my life.

And in all those thoughts marching around in my head and all those people cheering and hugging and welcoming in the new year together, I also thought about a verse that has comforted me tremendously through the past few months.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and Sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead," -Philippians 3: 12-13

I am a person hard-wired for reflection and for wanting to spend time processing through the past. But this often means that I get stuck there, and instead of anticipating future joys, I find myself rehashing all my old pains and failures.

But this New Year's, with those words of Paul humming through me, I found myself thinking about the truth. And it is that Jesus died, and that the cross tramples every past transgression or hurt. They are buried in the dirt, and it is not my job to dig them up and carry them around. My job is to acknowledge that they were, that they are not anymore, and that God has both used and forgotten them in my life in order that I may enjoy the freedom of being loved by Him.

Because I do not yet, as Paul was saying to the church in Philippi, grasp the full extent of who Jesus is and of how much love was displayed for me when he came to earth and died. There is still work to be done in me.

This New Year's, I am deciding to be grateful for the things the Lord has already done in me, but to also remember that there is so much more coming. My story is not completed. And so it would be silly, wouldn't it? To think mournfully at all about the past, when Jesus is thinking about my future, and is taking care of it? It would be silly, to rest in fear or apprehension or regret, when Jesus is working to reveal his glory in my life, of which I have not yet taken hold of in full. Someday, but not yet.