2024 - Living In The Wild

As 2024 arrives, I’m committed to leaning into life as it unfolds.  This will mean encountering great, encouraging things as well as difficult events and circumstances that I would not choose.  In all of it, I know that God is lighting my path.  That I don’t have to figure out miles down the road, only the next steps before me.  He’s pruning and shaping me to be more of who He would want me to be.

While we’re wrapping up time in the US with our family for the holidays, I took down all of the Christmas decorations and settled everything back into their storage boxes.  As part of the ritual, I found myself tossing two, once lovely poinsettias into the yard waste.  I always buy these colorful Christmas plants with the nagging reminder that they are very finicky and hard to water properly.  One didn’t even make it to Christmas.

Looking ahead to 2024, I think of the beautiful poinsettia bushes that will welcome me back to Uganda.  In Kampala’s temperate climate, poinsettias live in the wild.  No one waters them, prunes them or really notices them.  I do.  The one pictured here is to the left of the gate into our compound.  The second photo is of what I pitched in the recycle yesterday.

I want to live as the wild poinsettia lives in its natural environment. Not like the hot house version of what I want life to be. I am reminded of a verse that my dear friend, Recie Raley, lived by when we worked together in Young Life 35 years ago. 

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”  Matthew 11:28-30 MSG

May we stop stiving and simply live - freely and lightly.

May 2024 bring you into the “unforced rhythms of grace.”