My word for 2025: W I L D.
I sense an untethering happening within me. I don’t have many strengths, but a daily practice for me is to analyze my thoughts quickly and consistently through the grid of God’s Word. Perhaps it’s the unsavory love of self I possess or the vexing independence that I constantly fight, but I enjoy examining my heart and planning steps to better myself. I love a good plan. This was not in the plan.
The word “wild” is in the back of my head every day right now. When I say “wild,” there are some possible meanings that I immediately react to negatively. I do not mean unrestrained, hedonistic, or someone giving into any desire that strikes with little to no self-control. A woman like this has no peace or joy in her life and is soberly described in 1 Timothy 5:6 – “She who lives only for pleasure is spiritually dead even while she lives.” No ma’am.
W I L D.
It began last fall when I took a class about Heaven. It was such a great class. On the first day, the teacher read a quote by Randy Alcorn, “We cannot anticipate or desire what we cannot imagine.”1 Immediately, the Holy Spirit squeezed my heart. He wanted me to change my plans, and He wanted me to be open to imagining what life could be like next year. This was not the first time I had felt Him call me in this way, but this was the first time I lifted my head to His voice about it.
I am a dreamer to my core, so why had I been so resistant? I didn’t know. But through a series of events over the past few months, I have discovered something not altogether surprising but definitely disappointing about myself. Even more than I love a good plan, in my insecurity I cling to a system. I was startled to see a pattern in myself that I could trace backwards 15 years. I began examining all my daily choices. What is the grid in how I choose even my preferences?
Part of my biography is a decade-long struggle with an eating disorder. Many years ago, when both my circumstances and my inner turmoil were nothing short of chaos, my eating disorder was a system that made sense to me. It was a system that depended on nobody but me. But as Scripture predicts, I am a cruel master compared to Christ and this system led to a life of absolute misery. I clutched a system instead of clinging to the cross.
W I L D.
On nights where my husband works late, I enjoy going to bed early and studying my theology books. Systematic theology used to seem so scholarly to me, not something a college dropout was smart enough to study without a guide. I remember the day I realized that systematic theology is simply man’s efforts to organize the study of God, from Genesis to Revelation, into categories. I thought, “WOW! A system to attempt understand the fullness of God!” My discovery opened a door for me that changed my life. Oh how I wish I had learned this as a girl! I wish to convey to you that I don’t believe all systems are bad. To this day, studying systematic theology throws logs into the bonfire that warms my affections towards the triune God.
Charles Spurgeon says, “Systematic theology is to the Bible what science is to nature.”2 It’s an academic method of studying God in His Word. Although God invites us to know Him as far as He may be known, our understanding of Him will always be finite. A system has limits and Yahweh cannot be domesticated.
At the end of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis offers one last description of the lion, Aslan: “He’ll be coming and going… One day you’ll see him and another you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down – and of course he has other countries to attend to. It’s quite all right. He’ll often drop in. Only you mustn’t press him. He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.”3
W I L D.
In 2025 I’m choosing to discard some of the cultural systems that are neither sinful nor righteous, and to live by faith in a new way. I love that of all places, the Holy Spirit sent my beloved Jesus into the wilderness (Mark 1:12) at the beginning of His public ministry. This same God is leading me to a less domestic, more wild faith in Him.
“I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.” -Hosea 2:14
- Heaven: A Comprehensive Guide to Everything the Bible Says about Our Eternal Home by Randy Alcorn
- The Forgotten Spurgeon by Iain Murray
- The Complete Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Beautiful Allie! Bless you as you go WILD in the love of the Triune God in 2025!
Alexandra, I am excited to see how the Lord takes your systematic thinking into the wilderness of adventure and unplanned learning and loving! I have admired some of your “systems” over the years but I am delighted to hear of you opening your hands to whatever God has for you in 2025. I know He delights in all your energy and love for Him and His people. So very grateful to be a part of your tribe!