The Bible records and explains a special year in the life of God’s people called the Year of Jubilee.  Every 50 years those that had sold land or lost it to debt would have it returned. Those that had lost their freedom to be enslaved by another gained back their freedom. It was a year of celebration and returning: to land, to family, to inheritance, to opportunity, to equality and to equity. It didn’t matter how these things had been taken or lost during the in-between years. Such loss could have been the result of oppression and/or extortion by others, or by the failure of the individual to make good choices; perhaps even because of squandering away through foolishness, arrogance or even defiance. None of this was taken into account except to undo it.

The Year of Jubilee was a wiping clean of the slate.

It was a restoring of right order and relationships.

It was a righting of wrongs.

It was a reclaiming of all the promises of God.

It was a chance to try again.

It was a remembering that everything belonged to God.

I was thinking about this as I sat in my car tonight, looking out at Lake Erie – allowing some time to just sit and take in; let the “snow globe” settle.  I have been thinking of late about the fact that I have recently turned 50 years of age.  I have been contemplating where I am at, what I am doing, what I am wishing I had more time for, and what I want the next 10 years of my life to look like.  I feel like I am in the prime of my years of offering.  Am I positioned to give my best and reflect the fullness of what God has done in my life to this point?  Do I want to be doing what I am doing for the next 10 years?  Do I want to not be doing what I am not doing for the next 10 years?

All this came back to mind as I watched the waves.  And then this thought of the Year of Jubilee came to mind.  Could this be my Jubilee Year?  Could this be the year to know more deeply the freedom that I have been given? Could this be the year that God wipes the slate clean, rights the wrongs, restores relationships, and positions me to try again? As I watched the waves, and considered these questions, I had a sense that I was at least on the right track; that God was indeed calling me into something this year that would put things in order and be restorative. I prayed to know the fullness of this beyond my wildest imagination; that He would do immeasurably more than I could ask for or imagine.

I prayed that on my 51st birthday I would look back over the year and be able to say that this was indeed my Jubilee Year, and that it was only the beginning of a decade that would be amazing and that I would be a walking, proclaiming witness of what God wants to do among his people and beyond.