Happy New Year!
It’s hard to believe that today marks the beginning of a brand new year! I left ice and snow this morning in Minneapolis. As we landed in Fort Lauderdale, the pilot greeted us with the weather update of partly cloudy and 80 degrees. I’m home…and am starting to settle in.
Looking back at starting this blog exactly one year ago today, I continue to be in awe of the work God has done and is doing in my life! As I was INSPIRED one year ago, writing my very first blog post in this very chair at this very table, I was taught to start living in the moment. As I walked through the last year with all of you, I could have never imagined all that God had for me in 2011. From Mom’s stroke to getting baptized and walking through our family surrendering our lives to the Lord in a whole new way…it all folds into the MOMENTS. Day in and day out He showed me and my family what it means to walk by faith (and of course we continue to learn)!!!
And as I step into this New Year today, I was delighted to find an inspiring article in my inbox from my cousin. The article, Trading One Dramatic Resolution for 10,000 Little Ones by Paul Tripp (a must read) is a perfect fit as I search for my new resolution for 2012!!! What a great posture to take on while setting a resolution!(Please take a moment to read)
Trading One Dramatic Resolution for 10,000 Little Ones
by Paul Tripp
by Paul Tripp
I've told the story many times of talking impatiently with my wife one Sunday morning and having my nine year old son interject—
Daddy, is this the way a Christian man should be talking to his wife?
Rather sarcastically I said, what do you think?
and he replied, It doesn't make any difference what I think, what does God think?
I went to my bedroom and two thoughts immediately hit me. First, my pride reared up. I want to be a hero to my son and I was embarrassed that he had been troubled by my attitude and words. But that didn't last very long. I soon thought, "How could it be that God could love me so much that he would give a twit of care about this mundane little moment in the Tripp bathroom?"
That's love at a level of magnificence that I am unable to capture with words. This was but one moment in one room in one house of one family, on one block on one street in one neighborhood, in one city in one state in one country on one continent, in one hemisphere on one globe in the universe. Yet God was in that moment, working to continue his moment-by-moment work of transforming the heart of this man.
Rethinking the Annual Ritual
Why am I telling you this story? Well, it's that season once again. It's the fodder for blogs, newspaper articles, TV magazine shows and way too many Twitter posts. It is the time for the annual ritual of dramatic New Year's resolutions fueled by the hope of immediate and significant personal life change.
But the reality is that few smokers actually quit because of a single moment of resolve, few obese people have become slim and healthy because of one dramatic moment of commitment, few people who were deeply in debt have changed their financial lifestyle because they resolved to do so as the old year gave way to the new, and few marriages have been changed by the means of one dramatic resolution.
Is change important? Yes, it is for all of us in some way. Is commitment essential? Of course! There is a way in which all of our lives are shaped by the commitments we make. But biblical Christianity—which has the gospel of Jesus Christ at its heart—simply doesn't rest its hope in big, dramatic moments of change.
Living in the Utterly Mundane
The fact of the matter is that the transforming work of grace is more of a mundane process than it is a series of a few dramatic events. Personal heart and life change is always a process. And where does that process take place? It takes place where you and I live every day. And where do we live? Well, we all have the same address. Our lives don't careen from big moment to big moment. No, we all live in the utterly mundane.
Most of us won't be written up in history books. Most of us only make three or four momentous decisions in our lives, and several decades after we die, the people we leave behind will struggle to remember the event of our lives. You and I live in little moments, and if God doesn't rule our little moments and doesn't work to recreate us in the middle of them, then there is no hope for us, because that is where you and I live.
The little moments of life are profoundly important precisely because they are the little moments that we live in and that form us. This is where I think "Big Drama Christianity" gets us into trouble. It can cause us to devalue the significance of the little moments of life and the "small-change" grace that meets us there. And because we devalue the little moments where we live, we don't tend to notice the sin that gets exposed there. We fail to seek the grace that is offered to us.
The 10,000 Little Moments
You see, the character of a life is not set in two or three dramatic moments, but in 10,000 little moments. The character that was formed in those little moments is what shapes how you respond to the big moments of life.
What leads to significant personal change?
- 10,000 moments of personal insight and conviction
- 10,000 moments of humble submission
- 10,000 moments of foolishness exposed and wisdom gained
- 10,000 moments of sin confessed and sin forsaken
- 10,000 moments of courageous faith
- 10,000 choice points of obedience
- 10,000 times of forsaking the kingdom of self and running toward the kingdom of God
- 10,000 moments where we abandon worship of the creation and give ourselves to worship of the Creator.
And what makes all of this possible? Relentless, transforming, little-moment grace. You see, Jesus is Emmanuel not just because he came to earth, but because he makes you the place where he dwells. This means he is present and active in all the mundane moments of your daily life.
His Work to Rescue and Transform
And what is he doing? In these small moments he is delivering every redemptive promise he has made to you. In these unremarkable moments, he is working to rescue you from you and transform you into his likeness. By sovereign grace he places you in daily little moments that are designed to take you beyond your character, wisdom and grace so that you will seek the help and hope that can only be found in him. In a lifelong process of change, he is undoing you and rebuilding you again—exactly what each one of us needs!
Yes, you and I need to be committed to change, but not in a way that hopes for a big event of transformation, but in a way that finds joy in and is faithful to a day-by-day, step-by-step process of insight, confession, repentance and faith. And in those little moments we commit ourselves to remember the words of Paul in Romans 8:32—
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us, how will he not also with him freely give us all things.
So, we wake up each day committed to live in the small moments of our daily lives with open eyes and humbly expectant hearts.
SO – as I continue to be challenged to see God in the 10,000 moments, as discussed by Paul Tripp, I have been challenged to add another layer…
As I read Radical, David Platt explains why God made us:
1. To enjoy His grace (I’m learning this through the moments!)
2. To extend His glory (to make disciples)
It’s time to step up to number 2! To do this, I need to grow in knowledge of Him!
I have felt a strong nudge from the Lord asking me to take another step in obedience. I have never read through the entire Bible…cover to cover! I’ve started a few times, but honestly never made it very far. As I continue to study different books of the Bible through Bible study, I yearn to understand how it all fits together. To really begin to grasp the WORD OF GOD. I’m ready stop reading the Bible to Him and instead, allowing Him to read it to me!
At the end of David Platt’s book he has a one-year challenge outlining a plan to read through the entire Bible in a year. That’s it…I’m sold. One year from TODAY I will have read THE ENTIRE BIBLE! And as I sit here thinking about how fast 2011 flew by, I can’t wait to report back how God dug even deeper into my soul to mold me into the daughter he created me to be!
SO…are you with me?! I want to invite all of you to take this journey with me! Reading happens weekly on day 1-6 and on the 7th day we rest. What a cool plan (who would have thought to create a day off ;o)
Whether you’ve read bits and pieces of the Bible, or have read from cover-to-cover multiple times, I encourage you to come along for the ride! What’s better is we can hold on another accountable and grow in our faith together! Please send the blog along to anyone who you think will join us in this challenge! (Also, to receive the blog updates via email, please type your email into the box in the upper right hand corner of the blog)
Click here for the outline! (make sure to cross off as we go!)
So here goes DAY 365:
***SIDENOTE: I will have the required reading here each day, but I really encourage you to read it out of your Bible. If you don’t have one…I encourage you to pick one up!
Genesis 1
The Creation of the World
1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. 6 And God said, “Let there be an expanse[a] in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 And God made[b] the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven.[c] And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth,[d] and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants[e] yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons,[f] and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. 16 And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds[g] fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” 21 So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.” And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make man[h] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Genesis 2
The Seventh Day, God Rests
1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
The Creation of Man and Woman
4 These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
5 When no bush of the field[i] was yet in the land[j] and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, 6 and a mist[k] was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— 7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8 And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.
10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat[l] of it you shall surely die.”
18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for[m] him.” 19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed[n] every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam[o] there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made[p] into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”[q]
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Footnotes:
a. Genesis 1:6 Or a canopy; also verses 7, 8, 14, 15, 17, 20
b. Genesis 1:7 Or fashioned; also verse 16
c. Genesis 1:8 Or Sky; also verses 9, 14, 15, 17, 20, 26, 28, 30; 2:1
d. Genesis 1:10 Or Land; also verses 11, 12, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30; 2:1
e. Genesis 1:11 Or small plants; also verses 12, 29
f. Genesis 1:14 Or appointed times
g. Genesis 1:20 Or flying things; see Leviticus 11:19–20
h. Genesis 1:26 The Hebrew word for man (adam) is the generic term for mankind and becomes the proper name Adam
i. Genesis 2:5 Or open country
j. Genesis 2:5 Or earth; also verse 6
k. Genesis 2:6 Or spring
l. Genesis 2:17 Or when you eat
m. Genesis 2:18 Or corresponding to; also verse 20
n. Genesis 2:19 Or And out of the ground the LORD God formed
o. Genesis 2:20 Or the man
p. Genesis 2:22 Hebrew built
q. Genesis 2:23 The Hebrew words for woman (ishshah) and man (ish) sound alike
…SO today is a VERY long entry, but I hope you are excited about the brand NEW YEAR! I will continue to share the moments God is showing me in my life, along with taking this journey through the word of God. Even if you’re not interested in walking through the Bible this year, please check back to see how He continues to work through a Minnesota girl at heart…down here in south Florida, doing her best to live in His will!
~ Jessica
Where have you seen God’s grace in your life today?