This past November I spoke at an area church for the beginning of Advent. While I liked the general content of my sermon (and will surely reuse it somewhere down the road), I have to admit that something felt missing to me. As I reflected on the sermon throughout the rest of that afternoon, one word kept coming to mind: unfinished. It wasn’t, though, that the sermon wasn’t well-polished. . . at least not entirely. It also had something to do with my uneasiness to call people to a particular action, a kind of obedience in a particular moment. And that saddened me, because I think all words that come from God should lead to some kind of response.

And so I ended the year with the word unfinished in my head, and in my head it has remained. It has become something of a rabbit hole, a forest trail that I want to pursue this year.¹  The Apostle Paul talked about it in terms of “not that I have already achieved it yet,” which is something all people of faith must struggle with. Truth be told, an awful lot of me feels unfinished, and instead of getting to work on it, I’ve been puttering around like a hobbit knowing he has a journey to make but just can’t bring himself to step out the door. So if it seems like I’m grasping at straws here for the next few weeks, it’s because I’m trying to get things in order, pack the bare necessities, and run. I’ve been saving up a lot of thoughts, waiting for a “right time” to commit to them. I’m thinking the time is now. And by now I mean tomorrow, when I post the first in a series about Scary Close, Donald Miller’s first book in five years.

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¹ A “word of the year” reminds me of my dear friend Beth, who chooses a word each year to focus on.  This year her word is brave, which God gave her before being given a serious medical diagnosis.  You can check out her blog here.