A note to my twenty-year-old self

These are four of the main pieces of advice I wish I had known and heeded the past 44 years:

1. The grace of God in Christ is the centre of Christianity; faith in him and in free justification and adoption is the foundation of daily life in the Lord, not what I do for him or my obedience or my correct understanding of his will.  “Not law but gospel, not demands but promise – that is the core of revelation” ie. of the Bible. Words from Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith p76.
2. Being saved by Christ is about becoming more and more human, not more and more religious.  The Pharisees were much more religious than Jesus.
3. People are different – yes, there are some things common to all, but natural temperament or wiring, childhood experiences, background, influences, times of trauma, how people react to life and the decisions they make – all of this makes us different; don’t assume that on the inside this other person feels, thinks, functions or relates just as you do.  Psychology is important, despite not being as important as theology.

4. It is exceedingly helpful, even for a naturally lazy person or late bird rather than early bird (ie. someone who 99.5% of the time hates getting out of bed, and never wants to go to bed, who takes ages to wake up fully and to be in a position of wanting to talk to another human being) even for folk like me, it is really helpful to go to bed early enough to get up at 6.30 am or soon after, so that I can have an hour or hour and a half of leisurely time, before the day and obligations and communications from others come along, to sit down, read a bit of a good Christian book, read the Bible unhurriedly, talk to God, think about big and important non-urgent things, pray for some folk and issues, sing a Psalm, maybe write some notes about what God is saying or write out a great quote from the book I’m reading, maybe memorise a verse or two of Scripture, that kind of thing.  This practice has gone much better for me (in a bumpy, inconsistent way) the past 10 years or so and is making a ginormous difference to my life.