What I learned in 2023

I turned 50 in 2023! That brought a mixed bag of goodies and booby prizes.

Emotionally and mentally 2023 felt like my healthiest year ever! No exaggeration. A decade of steady self-work coupled with 4 years of work that my wife and I put into our marriage began to bear massive fruit last year. Covid was an accelerator in that it afforded me unforeseen levels of quality time with God that boosted my relationship with Him 10fold. It also accelerated (forced) the bonding between me, wifey, and our children as we spent months together working and learning from home. While I am saying that Covid helped and we put in the work, I cannot overstate the fact that God was the heavy-lifter here. Only He could do the amazing things in the hearts of our family members that caused us to knit together and only He could use a pandemic for our good! Mind you, it did not feel so rosy when these two families from St. Joseph and Paramin first moved in together! It was pressure but in 2023 the diamonds began to emerge.

Added to that, after being in one department for the past 18 years, a switch to a new area in late 2022, brought a breath of fresh air into my career as well. So with my wife and I being in a good place, the children excelling, the career taking on renewed life, and being involved in the fulfilling work with my wife of creating communities of love and belonging for Christians to grow, 2023 just felt like I was thriving.

While it’s nice to share celebratory reports, that’s not the main purpose of today’s blog. There were two key lessons that I learned in 2023 that I felt led to share with you.

Physical Health

2023 was my worst year ever for my physical health! Here the pandemic was not helpful at all! In 2023 I felt feeble (there I said it). Weight gained during the lockdown seemed to refuse to come off. In fact, I gained more! Injuries seemed to be taking forever to heal and for the first time, I considered that I may never be able to play football (soccer) or surf again. I had a fatty liver, high cholesterol, some kind of mystery dizziness, and shortness of breath. Things just seemed to be going from bad to worse. “Is this 50?” I asked myself.

BUT I discovered something coming down to the end…. I will never lose weight or stay fit doing activities that I do not like to do. I tried for the whole of 2023 to stay fit by walking and home workouts. I can get more out of group workouts but inevitably people workout to music that I don’t want in my head. So that’s a no-go. But last month I played football for the second time since before Covid and while I almost died, by the next day I literally felt my whole body become stronger. Overnight! Then I played again twice last week and the dizziness and shortness of breath are gone. So what I realized is that I need to do intense cardio activities and that’s only going to happen by doing things I love to do.

So in 2024, I will be making time for football and mountain biking. I realize that it is imperative that I have intense cardio workouts. Walking and home workouts are not enough for me to stay fit. I will be prioritizing this over work and ministry.

Folks, I know we always talk about prioritizing our health but I’m encouraging you again, especially my fellow pastors and professionals, the work is not more important… the seminar, church service, or feeding the poor programme is not more important. Also, take the time to know your own body and what works for you. Do what you love, it’s far more sustainable!

Relationships

God had me focusing on relationship-building for all of 2023. Mainly with my close and extended family and I learned something invaluable: God’s grace flows through our connections with people. The word that was the icon of what God was after in my life was CONNECTION.

It involved me having discussions with my mother about things that happened in the family when I was a child and not dismissing her perspectives so quickly. It involved me apologizing to my boss about the way I gave him some feedback, taking the time to explain my heart’s motive, and assuring him that I was for him not against him. It involved me building bridges with coworkers by genuinely finding and celebrating their strengths and offering tangible assistance in achieving their goals. It involved trying to understand my sister better and building bridges instead of taking offense. It involved being quicker to remove any distance between my wife and me. It involved taking a softer tone with my ex-wife. It involved walking in my children’s shoes a little more.

The result was that I saw God’s grace at work in my family and workplace more than ever. It crystallized something very clearly for me. God is not doing something over here and we are doing relationships over there. The vehicle for God’s grace to flow is the love connections between each other. The stronger the connection, the more of God’s grace can flow in our lives. If I want to see revival in my family, I have to build stronger bonds with my family members. If I want to see revival in my workplace, I have to build deeper relationships with my coworkers.

There is a depth of relationship with each other, a purity of love and affection, that God has intended for us that I do not think we fully grasp as Christians. I don’t think we have any grid for just how amazing and glorious it will look to live in unity. Nor do we understand just how much work it will take to get there. I am fully convinced that God is not interested in our programmes, seminars, conferences, and meetings apart from a foundation of building deeper relationships. So this year less is more. I’m cutting back even further on the ‘conversations’ that are just empty intellectual foreplay without any heart communion. I’m ditching even more of the online groups and social media where people share a whole lot of opinions and so little of themselves. I’m going deeper with fewer.

Here’s an added epiphany that I had: God does not need my help to fix people. I saw two people in my life begin to change and address things that I saw they needed to address for years. I dropped hints, I gave gentle advice, I shared relevant information and I obsessed about whether I was doing enough. But in His own timing, God showed them what they needed to see. Neither said that I had any role in their epiphanies. God was doing something in their lives. I laughed at myself. God doesn’t need my help. Well, I’m sure He uses my love and my prayers but beyond that…

So my second encouragement to you is to prioritize a few significant relationships this year and really work on them. Don’t try to be a better person in a general sense. Try to be a better mother to a specific child, a better friend to X, a better husband to your wife… But most importantly, do it from the point of view of just trying to build a stronger connection between you and them. Seek to understand them better and help them to understand you. Seek to provide any support you can to their growth and success (as they define it, not you) without expecting anything in return. Petition God for blessings on their life in your private prayer time. Love them.

Happy New Year!