mi vida entera

New Years are always full of resolutions--plans to better oneself, to achieve goals that have to this point been unattainable, plans to work harder and dream bigger for that thing you want so badly. As I began to contemplate this New Year on my way to work yesterday and the amazing things that lie ahead I was convicted by a very short advertisement on the radio: "Instead of trying to focus on the negative this new year, focus on the positive." How often do our resolutions involve something like losing weight, or not spending so much time watching television? We focus on the "cutting out" of things from our life rather than putting things INTO our lives.

As I have spent the last few months trying to trim some of the unhealthy "fat" in my relationship with Jesus, I'm determined to build some muscle this year. I spent the last week at a conference for college-age students interested in missions in St. Louis called Urbana. I was built up to dream big for God and to pursue His call on my life. I've always wanted to do missions, but the past few months have been more trying than I can say. I haven't pursued God or His kingdom like I should--in fact, it would be safe to say that I haven't pursued much of anything except worry and affirmation from the world about my career choice. Urbana challenged me to find my identity and worth in Jesus. What could possibly make me a better person than spending time with Jesus. I'm beginning to understand that our time is precious to God--whether we think it is or not. I entitled this blog post "Mi Vida Entera" which was the title of a song that rang so close to my heart at Urbana. It means, My Whole Life--but in Spanish it has a greater meaning than the English translation can convey. It means all of me, not just my life, but everything I live for, everything I believe in and the essence of my humanity. 

This New Year, and I pray, for the entirety of each New Year I am granted, that Mi Vida Entera would be spent caught up in the most mysterious, wonderful, and amazing love affair that mankind can fathom--a love affair with the Creator of Life. 

I spent some time with Jesus today by exploring a book by J.I. Packer called "Knowing God." In its first few pages Packer quotes C.H. Spurgeon about our exploration for this celestial being, 

"There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is downed in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the though, 'Behold I am wise.' But when we come to this master science, finding that our plumbline cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild ass's cold; and with solemn exclamation, 'I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.' No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God...But while the subject humbles the mind, it also expands it. He who often thinks of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe...The most excellent study for expanding the soul, is the science of Christ, and Him crucified, and the knowledge of the Godhead in the glorious Trinity. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity. And whiles humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatory. Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound; in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief; and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for ever sore. Would you lose your sorrow? Would you drown your cares? Then go, plunge yourself in the Godhead's deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know thing which can so comfort the soul; so calm the swelling billows of sorrow and grief; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead."

And to this, I give mi vida entera. Will you take the plunge with me?