I loaded my bike into my car, so I could go riding in strange and unusual places.
I drove to my Mom’s house, and rode my bike around Mare Island.
Lessons Learned:
When I was 20, I lived in Thousand Oaks, CA, working at IBM. I was making good money, and I wanted to buy a bike. I found a custom-bike engineering company about 5 miles away, and I asked them if they would work with me to design and build a bike that I could ride. They said no. They were worried about the liability of making a machine that would end up killing me, and they would get blamed. I gave up and forgot about it. 38 years later, I got my bike. I should never give up hope that my dreams might come true.
Year-End Thoughts:
I have come to realize that God has been at work all my life to teach me about myself… as well as about Himself. I assumed that learning about myself was a waste of valuable time that could be better spent learning about God. Instead, God has helped me to understand Him better, by explaining my true self to ME. Truth is always valuable and precious. Truth, wisdom, awareness, clarity and understanding about myself are valid entry-points for God to reach me.
God’s Word explains so much about truth. But, I can’t put the Word into my life unless I know how I fit/don’t fit with the Word. This means I can misapply the Word to myself, just by simply misunderstanding myself. God must not only give me the medicine, but He must also tell me how to utilize that medicine to cure me. There is a protocol that must be followed in order to be healed, and that comes in addition to the medicine.
God has spent a lot of time teaching me the truth about myself. Augustine says there is a great abyss of mystery inside myself. Only God knows me fully, and only God can explain me.
I am not afraid, nor am I ashamed to spend time with God in the pursuit of knowing myself better. If God leads me to explore my interior soul, then how can I refuse Him?
The goal is not selfish introspection, but divine illumination of who God made me to be. I engage with God as He shines His light onto the deep abyss of my soul. In this journey with Him, I discover more about us both, and I am always drawn closer to Him than before.
