On New Year’s Day, I habitually remember what God, over three thousand years ago, commanded His people to do, “Do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart. Teach them to your children and their children after them.” (Deut 4:9-10.). I also pray David’s prayer, “Teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart unto wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12, NIV). Or as the ISV says, “Teach us to keep account of our days, so we may develop inner wisdom.” (ISV).

Six centuries after David wrote this Psalm, a pagan philosopher, Socrates, said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” And more recently, another philosopher, Santayana, said, “He who does not remember the past is condemned to repeat it.”

These truths moved me sixty-four years ago to write daily diaries, keeping account of my life faithfully, so I would not forget what God had taught me. The first thirty-one years were in handwritten diaries, seen in the photo. The rest are all keyboarded on my laptop.
I constantly struggle against our busyness-valuing culture. It takes self-control and discipline to stop and think through the past day and write about people God brought into my life, the failures He showed me, and the lessons He taught me. I also write about what God did for me or through me.

Reading my diaries helps me to make a yearly calendar of family events worthy of being celebrated. Not just the routine birthdays and anniversaries but major decisions, significant happenings in our families and important goals reached in ministry. Usually, when I mention these God stories in a text, email, or conversation, the result is more praise to Him.

New Year’s week, therefore, is an ideal time for me to ask myself some life-examining questions:

1. What significant experiences have I had in the past and what lessons have I learned from them to apply in 2023?As I am writing my memoirs, I keep in mind the importance of life stories from a lesson I learned years ago: To hear “You’re the grandpa who tells me stories” is still vastly more satisfying than “You’re the grandpa who buys me presents,” and much cheaper.
2. How can I make the most of the life I have left to write these memoirs?
   My 85^th birthday is coming up in a few months, and lately I have read obituaries of people I know who are younger than I am. The obvious lesson to me is to stop spending my time doing things that other people can do, like teaching, preaching, and organizing, and keep my focus on writing my life stories. Isaac Asimov is one of my favourite authors. Towards the end of his life, he was asked, “What changes would you make if you knew you would have only a few more months left to live?” “Type faster,” he replied. I may take that as my motto for the months or years I have left.
3. How have I dealt with unpleasant happenings, like physical problems, emotional upsets, mental disturbances or deaths among relatives or friends, and how can I do better?
   These negative events can come slowly or unexpectedly. Either way, disability and death hurt. What does God want me to do? Show love practically to those suffering. Be with them, meet their physical needs, and pray that God will comfort and strengthen them. Remind them that Christian Hope is the absolute sure expectation that no matter how things turn out, in the end, it will make sense since God is always in full control.
4. What about pleasant happenings?
   I need to praise God and share the news so others can praise Him too. This past year Christ’s church in the smaller Canela village (where Jo and I had very little contact) grew to such an extent that they were able to build a brick church and finish the clay tile roof in time to celebrate Christmas inside. Now believers in both villages have a place to gather that is fireproof and dry even during the rainy season.
5. How can I keep my resolutions for changes and growth in my life? I must not go it alone! I need to ally myself with people who will hold me accountable. My wife Jo is my chief accountability partner. She critiques all my writing, but happily, she does not criticize me as a person. Well, not much, anyway.
   I need others to help me act, but I need to take time to be alone, to remember and to think and to write.

God wants us to examine our lives, to learn from our past, to become wise and to teach our children what we have seen Him do.
May He grant us all a New Year in which He guides each one of us in individual ways to keep account of our days as the first step to growing in wisdom.