Word for the Year 2021

2021 has arrived. Time for a new Word for the Year.

Past time, really, because I’ve known what it would be since last summer, and I snuck in some of my study of it before 2020 was finished. I’ve only been waiting for the blog change to write this first post of 2021.

My Word for 2021 made itself known as I was writing my Reader, Walking series. This post, Hide and Seek, and the thoughts behind it were instrumental to the choice. Words don’t always show up so early nor so insistently. This one was very insistent.

In the past I’ve had words like revel, attend, pacify, conform, commune, and, last year, engage. Let me just say that “engage” was quite the Word for 2020. It was a year of learning when and when not to engage.

My Word for the Year has always been, first: a verb. In the imperative. The words might have a sense that is a noun, but I always choose the verb form first. They must have something to do. Generally, they’re something I need to change about how I’m living before God and man.

Generally, they stick around a while, too, as I continue to contemplate the ideas and practice the habits and attitudes a year of thought and action engender.

As I’ve been reading scripture during this past year – and practiced engaging with God, men and the world – I noticed that the word “seek” kept coming to the forefront.

The “Reader, Walking” post I mentioned earlier had made me notice the thought that we had to seek the flowers; God knew each one and attired it in fullness. It was so hidden that if we hadn’t been seeking, we wouldn’t have even know its existence, its being, but God knew and relished each bloom. He sees, he knows.

What does it mean that Jesus “came to seek and save the lost”? The infinite, omnipresent, omniscient God knows. Even when He seeks his lost sheep, it isn’t that He doesn’t know where they will be found or if they will be found. He knows their locale, their selves. He knows us better than we ourselves know!

What does it mean to “seek first the kingdom of God”?

What does it mean to ask, seek, and knock?

How can we seek peace and pursue it? To seek the peace and prosperity of Babylon?

Are there times to not seek?

Are there times to say, “I’ve found”?

How can I actively seek God and His kingdom, promote Him among men, and engage in His world?

See? They stick around.

I hope you’ll join me as I seek to seek out the meaning of seek in 2021.