SO MAYBE I WILL MAKE JUST ONE RESOLUTION!

 

As usual, one of my biggest laments every single year, is the inconsistency of my Bible reading and study.  I KNOW that consistently being in God’s Word is the thing that keeps me close to Him, attentive to His “voice”, and sensing His presence and activity in my life and the world around me.  However, like every other good thing, I have such a hard time actually DOING it! 

My wonderful husband gave me the perfect gift this Christmas.  Sometime before the holiday I told him that for a donation to the ministry of Dr. David Jeremiah, we could get his study Bible and a yearly devotional. And he was listening! 

Just yesterday, on January 2, I found this quote by Dr. Jeremiah in the daily devotional reading:

Resolve in the New Year to be a gleaner of the Word of God, letting no morsel of truth go undigested.  In this way you will never go spiritually hungry.

I know about spiritual hunger.  It’s that empty feeling that sets into my soul when I allow too much busyness to crowd out time in God’s Word. At first I don’t notice much, but then the Lord starts to seem awfully far away, His voice is silent, and I find myself moving through my days without giving Him a single thought.  Terrible to admit, but true.

It’s not that I don’t have time.  Do you know what I DID do this year?  In January of 2013, I set a goal for myself to read 40 books, 15 of them non-fiction. I felt a huge sense of satisfaction to surpass it this year.  If I have time for all those other books, how can I be so inconsistent in reading God’s book?

Before I even read Dr. Jeremiah’s quote I had given thought to doing things differently in this New Year.  I thought that if I could challenge myself to read ordinary books, maybe I could challenge myself to read the Bible more faithfully as well.

When I read a book of the Bible, or even a daily reading, I always note the date in the margin. So I went through my Bible, noting the day on which I last began reading a particular book.   I made a list of the books I hadn’t read in a long time.  I ended up with six Old and six New Testament books on that list.  So, in my journal, on the first page of each month I’ll post that list and I’ll work myself through those 12 books in addition to my usual reading challenge.

Another thing I’m challenging myself to do is to take notes in a document on my computer.  I summarize the chapter I’m reading, look for attributes of God and list them, writing down lessons for my own life that I see there, and challenge myself to apply them.

When I have done this sort of thing before (usually in a notebook), my own reading and study become “food” for feeding others in a Bible study at church or when I speak at a women’s group.  Pretty exciting stuff! 

My writing becomes a launch pad for prayer as well as I pray my way through what God reveals about Himself and how it applies to my life.  I also record my prayers for the people and situations the Lord has laid on my heart.

I’ve only been at this three days.  All church activities have been on hold because of the holidays, and we just had a snow storm, so not a lot is competing for my time.  The real test will be how consistent I remain when everything is going full speed ahead again!  But I’m going to try.

I’m going to try and be a better gleaner of the Word of God – not just picking the low hanging fruit – but reaching higher so that no morsel of truth goes undigested. 

I don't ever want to go hungry when the kind of food that truly feeds my soul is so readily available.

IT'S 2014! ARE YOU READY TO GO?

In last year’s New Year’s blog I mentioned how I try not to make resolutions because I hardly ever keep them.  My family and I were having a discussion about this the other day and decided, just for fun, to only make resolutions we knew we could keep.  So here are my resolutions for this year:

 I WILL put on weight.

I will continue to HATE exercise and avoid it when I can.

I will procrastinate about EVERYTHING – cleaning, making doctor’s appointments, throwing away old clothes, thinking about what to make for dinner, packing for trips, etc.  I will determine that every single one of them can wait until tomorrow (or the day – or month – after that), and I will instead read a good book and maybe take a nap.

I will make bad food choices.  I will continue to eat potato chips with lunch and sometimes I will wash them down with soda.  I will skip the salad and have dessert instead.  I will NOT watch my carbs, sugar or fats.  However, I WILL continue to feel guilty about all of these bad choices. 

Despite the warnings of my children, I will continue to act like the age I FEEL and not the age I AM, and do some wild and crazy things.  This year at least they can rest easy – I won’t be donating a kidney!

Seriously though, I love this time of year for a number of reasons. One of them is winter itself.  As I write this (on January 2), the view outside my window is spectacular, beautiful sunshine reflecting off the snow which fell during the night. Being of a “certain age”, my body thermostat tends to run on “hot”, so I have also become a lover of winter’s cold.  Winter’s beauty brings me joy. 

Another reason I love this time of year is that it is the perfect time to reflect.  I love to spend time during this first week of January reviewing my monthly journals from 2013 to see what the Lord was up to in my life.  If you’ve been reading my blogs this past year then you know that the highlight of the year came in August when I donated a kidney to Jennifer, a woman from my church.  The months before that memorable day were filled with tests of every sort – blood work, kidney function, heart health, and a host of others – to be sure I was ready and able to part with a kidney.

I am still blown away that the great God of all the universe, Creator of all things, and lover of my soul opened this door of opportunity and led the way as I walked through it. He never left my side – or Jennifer’s  – but carried us along in perfect peace and did all things well.  The true testimony of His power, faithfulness and grace is Jennifer herself.  She has had NO signs of rejection at all and continues to live her life with joy, and strength.  2013 was a truly amazing year to reflect upon!

The New Year is not only a time to enjoy the beauty of winter and reflect on the year just past, it’s also a time to joyfully anticipate what might lie ahead.  As January dawns, I find myself wondering, “What WILL this new year hold”? 

 I don’t know the details, but this I do know, the Lord is ALWAYS at work and sometimes He asks me to work alongside Him in ways I never anticipated.  His ways are SO much wilder and crazier, so much more amazing and satisfying, so awesome, that I could never in a million years have thought of them myself! 

In yesterday’ reading of Oswald Chamber’s, My Utmost for His Highest, he first quotes the New Testament book of Hebrews 11, verse 8, which speaks of Abraham:

“He went out, not knowing where he was going.” 

And then he says this:

“Have you ever ‘gone out’ in this way?  If so, there is no logical answer possible when anyone asks you what you are doing.  One of the most difficult questions to answer in Christian work is, “What do you expect to do?”  You don’t know what you are going to do.  The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing.  Are you willing to ‘go out’ in every area of your life, trusting in God entirely?  It is this attitude that keeps you in constant wonder, because you don’t know what God is going to do next.”

Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and will you ‘go out’ in complete surrender to Him, until you are not surprised one iota by anything He does?”

When the Lord put it on my heart back in 2011 to pursue the possibility of donating a kidney to someone I barely knew it seemed the most illogical thing EVER.  But what an adventure to follow the Lord in it!

In this New Year, 2014, I will resolve not to make my own plans, because truthfully, I don’t know what I am going to do.  I do however, know that God knows what He is going to do, and He just might want me to do it with Him. 

So until I hear His, “Come on, Dot, let’s go!”, I’m going to stay in constant wonder, and eager expectation about what the Lord is going to do next – and I’m going to be ready to go when He calls! 

How about you?