A Quarter of a Decade

GCD Weekly Newsletter - 3rd January 2025

It just feels wrong. Time is moving so fast that I feel like I should be seasick. As Poet and Philosopher Steve Harwell once sang, “the years start coming, and they don't stop coming.”

Ain’t that the truth.

The period between Christmas Eve and Blue Monday gives us a chance to slow down though. The latter suggests that during that period, many of us begin to lose hope. The potential weight of the year to come crashes down on us, and we feel the full force of it. Pair that with the proliferation of exhortations and encouragements to come up with New Year’s Resolutions—my own included—and this season makes for quite diverse reading.

What if it is all in search of the same thing, though?

Advent and Christmas leave us looking heavenwards, thankful for God’s gift in the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. As soon as Boxing Day punches out though, we banish all thought and word of the nativity altogether. A few years ago, I heard Jesus’ birth preached about in mid-Spring. It felt odd, and the preacher even said as much. By the end though, it left me wondering why we don’t talk about it more often? It delivered a measure of hope that I’d been missing at the time, and it was one I was adamant to keep a hold of.

What if, instead of just making resolutions—which are good—and coming to terms with our feelings later on in the month—which is healthy—we tackle both with the same Spirit present during December’s celebrations?

Grace and Peace,

Adsum Try Ravenhill is married to Anna and together they are passionate about seeing men and women discipled in the context of the local church. They live in Reading, UK and are part of a church plant that meets in the town hall. Adsum edits the GCD Weekly Newsletter and can be found through his writing at The Raven’s Writing Desk. You can find all of Adsum’s previous articles for GCD here.

Last Week at GCDiscipleship.com

What Do You Do When God Seems Dull?
by Christy Britton

On this side of glory, our hearts are imperfect in their affections. The cares of this world suffocate what should be a consuming devotion to our king. Despite the magnitude of the grace shown to us in Christ, our hearts grow dull at times. It is when our hearts lose their vibrancy of affection for Christ that we become easy prey for the tempter. When we take our eyes off Jesus, when we set our affections away from Christ, we fall into sin.

New Year’s Reservations
by

Adsum Try Ravenhill

At the end of 2023, I ended up in the hospital after four and half hours waiting for an ambulance. The pain was unfathomable. It still is. Speaking with the doctor afterwards, we talked about pain management. The waiting list for a specialist is so long that I’m still waiting to see someone now, so we needed options for the short term. “How much sleep do you get?” he asked. Looking back, I still don’t know how I got by on just three to four hours. He prescribed me a medicine that would help me relax at night and hopefully improve on that number. In actuality, it has more than doubled it. I’m not in any less pain than before, I’m actually in more, but I’m far better equipped to deal with it. That simple gift of rest was immense.