New Year's Evolution

Spent the holidays driving through much of the northern midwest with the family. The four of us in our Xterra. Boys in the back playing a portfolio of video games on hand held and rigged devises. My wife as navigator and status updater. We spent nights in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Kentucky. With a few day trips to a handful of others. Pleasantly, we didn't encounter too much of the wintry stuff. Sure it was cold, but only short moments of the rip-through-your-skin and seek shelter winds. And just enough snowfall to allow for a day of skiing (I as an observer from the chalet bar) and a dreamlike New Year's Eve of snowball fights, snowmen and oddly enough, a snow recliner. A beautiful time with extended family mixed with intimate moments of the four of us. We racked up nearly 3,000 miles. A long haul.

We have always been the road warriors. My kids are one of a handful that believe you are actually close to something if you have an hour and a half car ride ahead of you. The trips have gotten better and better. The percentage of down time to complaining time has drastically decreased over the years. And I really enjoy it myself. I do the driving. My wife does the managing. The boys have grown tolerant and find joy in the journey themselves. One of the major highlights for me is the open road. Miles and miles. Hours and hours of time to: Weigh life and all of its nuances, challenge my attitude and activities, and do a heckofa lot of daydreaming.

The daydreaming. The thinking. The internal "what if" sessions are even more intensified on these long trips when they fall at year's end. Visions of resolutions mixed with "is this really what I want to be doing with my life" pepper in and out. I love this. I believe too many of us don't take this time to self examine for a long duration. Sure we have our moments in the dark, face up on the mattress, but hours and hours on end are unique.

So as for my thoughts going in to 2012 (Wow, 2012. Thought we'd be in flying cars by now.).

• Clearly I could lose a few pounds
• Need to achieve a better work/life balance
• Need to exercise more
• Yadda Yadda Yadda

What really stands out for me is my attitude. My person. Not that I am walking around pissy. I just want to be less meddlesome, less wrongly concerned, less worried, more considerate of others, more giving of my talents, more active, more serving, more adventurous, more bold, more available for whatever.

All those things for me (and I'd think most) are clearly unsustainable as a resolution. Or with a strategic plan. Or by pulling up my bootstraps. I believe I'd have to evolve into a being more like Jesus. I guess that's a tall order. Being like Jesus. Perhaps even one I might regret. After all, He had a rough go of it. Really rough.

But THIS road. This long road of evolution. Takes more than gas and a map. It requires the road of Calvary. And of dieing to myself daily. It requires a deeper understanding of Jesus himself. And I can't travel that road and don't have the fuel to do so alone.

I can't do it. I need Him to.

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in me will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.* I can't go THIS evolution alone.

We can't evolve without other influences or agents which cause appropriate change. Be it a Darwinian-believed reach requirement evolving a giraffe's neck. Or me becoming less an ape.

I need Jesus to make me be like Jesus.

He's done the redeeming work. Allowing God to be able to see us clean, and as his own again. Now I need to let him evolve this ape out of me. And transform me into something better. More adapt at understanding, dealing with, and leading within this world. Moment by moment. Decision by decision. Action by action.


*Referring to Philippians 1:6