resolutely unresolved.

I'm not making New Year's Resolutions. Because I feel like that's asking God to do something crazy.

I feel like He'll say, "You wanna write something...write THIS!"

And then, bam, I'm like, tailing somebody at the Pentecostal Evangel, writing canned pieces about Prop 8. I'm not saying, by the way, that the Pentecostal Evangel would ever give me a job. They have standards, you know.

But I've learned a lot about God this year. So I now avoid a few things.

I try not to ask specifically to "be humbled." Instead, I ask for humility, and hope that God kinda sorta knows that it'd be great if those lessons could come as gently and comfortably as possible. Because I have read what happens to Job, and that dude didn't even ask for it.

I avoid phrases like, "If You feel like it," or "I know that You'll do what You'll do, but..." Because those kinds of things, at core, doubt the power and love of God through prayer. They contain Him to logic. And I don't know anything about being God, but I like to prove people wrong, and I wonder if sometimes He does, too. That may be why I go to a Southern Pentecostal megachurch with smoke machines, and conservatives.

I never promise anything to God. There's no "I'll love You forever," and no "I'll only worship You." When I feel those things, I adore them. I can't say them, though, because I can't keep them. I don't wake up every day believing in God, and I don't go to sleep every night trusting in His son. So when my mind is sober enough to pray, I pray that He'd never keep me far from Him. I get on my knees and I pray that I'll always come back.

In that way, the past year has been like recovery. I've been learning my own limits, my errors. I've seen my fragility. Planned for it.

So, I'm not making resolutions. I don't need to. Whether or not I ever ask, God will humble me, and He will surprise me. Will He keep me?

I don't know. I'm sure there are many people who never suspected they'd fall from His presence, perhaps never wanted to.

Pray with me.

Father. Find me, always. Have mercy on me. Show grace. Though I know I will give it all to You in this moment, that promise is good for this one only. Thank you for this moment. Keep me in the next. That at the end, all moments will be yours. Each one joined with the next, and all Your doing, and all Your glory. Oh, Father.