And so as 2010 draws to an end it also marks the end of a decade - the first decade of the 21st Century. And with the end of this decade comes the end of a very important chapter in my life. In short I have grown up! Over the last 10 years I have graduated from high school, college and university as well as have become a qualified secondary school teacher. My formal education is behind me: I have grown from a teenager into a man. I have made and lost friends; I have been in love and had my heart broken. There have been many new beginnings and some untimely endings. Through this process of maturation I have learnt much about life, about responsibility, about pressure and expectations and about faith.
So I look back on this past decade for the last time. My future is ahead of me and I can only imagine if it will be as eventful as the last 10 years. In many ways I feel like the character JD from Scrubs as he left Sacred Heart Hospital. Always prone to fantasising his life, as he stepped out of that building for the last time, his final shift over, he imagines what the future may bring him: whether it will bring him the happiness of love and friendship he holds so dear and desires about all else. It is a very moving and poignant scene and made for very powerful television. In my own sentimental and romantic way I too stand at a precipice. A new epoch, a new era of my life is about to begin. I pray that the lessons I have learnt of life and faith will hold me in good sted in the decade to come as I seek to grow as a man and as I find my place in this world.
So 2011 beckons and a new dawn is about to rise. I am happy to be alive and desire more of God. Life is a journey; a journey of self discovery and self fulfillment. It is a journey in which, if we are perceptive enough, we will learn more about our divine Creator, through nature, through our relationships and experiences and through Scripture. The other night I watched the Last Samurai for the first time. That film is also about endings - the end of a proud warrior tradition; of a noble aristocratic warrior code. The lead character Katsumoto is persuaded, by Tom Cruises's character, to lead one last act of defiance against the vanguard of Westernisation that was heavily influenced by the American negotiators and diplomats. Faced with the latest in military technology, Katsumoto's Samurai are no match for the Imperial Japanese army armed with Canons, rifles and Gatling Guns and tragically, yet heroically Katsumoto is shot down and dies a martyr. In the final scene of the film the young Emperor of Japan asks Tom Cruise how Katsumoto died to which Cruise's character replies:
"I will tell you how he lived!"
Jesus was a man who lived with the utmost integrity. Jesus was a man who taught the world not just about love through his death, but about what it means to be human through his life. He was a teacher, a devout and pious man of God, yet without all the hypocritical trappings and character flaws of the religious leaders of his day. Oh to have been alive and to have lived along side Jesus! As Tom Cruise's character slowly comes to admire and respect Katsumoto's Samurai way of life, so too as I learn more about Jesus I am compelled to live as he did; to emulate his compassion and mercy; to be led and guided by his wisdom, to have such a strong sense of justice as he did and to embody and personify the love and faith that he epitomised. Jesus truly was a great man; who though died a criminal's death unjustly, died a martyr and more importantly died a saviour.
Just as the cherry blossom symbolised the Samurai's life - beautiful, noble yet fleeting; so too the Bible says man's life is but grass, like a mist that quickly evapourates. We are mortal and our mortality is fragile. But I choose with the life I have been gifted by God, with every breath I take, to grow in stature of faith and love; to nurture the essence of God that has been imputed to me by the Holy Spirit and to grow closer to my Creator. Jesus lived roughly 33 years. Like the Samurai his life was short. But what a life! He lived the equivilant of 10 lives in his short one! With what ever time God graces me with I want to make it count; I don't want to waste such a precious gift. I will be 25 in 2011; I will have lived a quarter of a century on this earth - I want to make sure that every single day is made to count; that the true essence and Shekinah Glory of God is revealed to me and that in every way I can learn what it truly means to live as Jesus taught me.
I have a suspicion that my future may lie abroad. Before Jesus ascended into Heaven he commissioned his Apostles to:
"Go forth and make disciples of all nations..."
I desire to see God's kingdom grow here on earth: to see lives saved and to see Satan's kingdom diminish. The Bible says to store up for yourself treasure in heaven and when I die I want to have a nice, healthy bank account waiting for me! I would love to go to Japan but I do not know for certain what God's plan for my future is. I just need to be open to it. To live every day as if it were my last. It is said that the Samurai's life was a preparation for his death. The same is true of the Christian.
So I welcome the New Year and just as Japan is known as the land of the rising Sun, so I desire to see the Son of God rise over the earth to administer justice, peace, equality and love.
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