increase


It’s been a few years since I had a ‘word’ for my year.

I’ve always found it to be a good practice — articulating a theme that anchors my story for the year.

More recently I’ve resisted the urge to manufacture an overlay for my experiences — between some traumatic events and creative fatigue ‘my word for the year’ hasn’t been something I’ve pursued.

After a few years of allowing my year to just ‘be’, I’ve been surprised at the emergence of a word for 2025.

Increase.

And it’s against all odds.  Yes, cost of living crisis.  Yes, I’m super-cautious about empty notions of prosperity (partly because of my conservative theological lineage, and partly because I’m Australian and default to suspicion or envy at someone else’s success story - aka tall-poppy syndrome).  And yes, because I’m noticing a slow decline in the funding model I’ve been existing in.

Increase as an expectation of 2025 is completely counter-intuitive.

And yet I cannot shake the call to anticipate more.  A number of 2024 markers deepen my resolve to initiate and lead in 2025:

  • In my longing to see others deepen their faith experience through the SoulWalk Project 

  • In the support of my colleagues in their respective projects (Junktion / Converge)

As I think about each of these projects, they may be embryonic in size, but they are all filled with rich possibility.  Possibility that stands as a rebuke to my tendency to play them down — why should my insecurity stand in the way of potential bearing the fruit it promises?

So, I offer the word INCREASE as my word for 2025.  Not because of wishful thinking or misguided triumphalism, but because I happen to believe in the potential of the seeds being planted.

And I do take responsibility for the part I might play in seeing this increase emerge, but I’m reminded that I cannot take responsibility for the miracle of growth against the odds.

“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6)

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30)

Comments

Popular Posts