Saturday, March 3, 2012

Savoring Glory--My 30 Day Challenge

A while ago a friend sent me a link to this video, introducing me to the idea of setting goals to do something new for thirty days straight. http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html

At the time I watched it, I didn’t have any inspirations, but the other day it came to me; for thirty days, I’m going to make time each day to notice and write about something beautiful I encountered that day. There are several reasons:

1) I’ve been in a big writing slump lately, and need a manageable way to get back into the habit of picking up my pen (okay, keyboard) and recording some of the things worth remembering each day.

2) I’m discovering that my attitude is at least as important, if not more so, than my knowledge. I really don’t need to understand many of the mysteries of life in order to live well, but my attitude will permeate every single thing I do, and will either be a weight or a buoy to all my efforts. When I am rejoicing in God, I am walking in fellowship with Jesus Christ, “in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3) And joy, like love, is far more a decision of the will than an emotion of the heart. It means intentionally noticing the things that God does, reveling in His glory and power, and doing what I can to ensure that in the midst of this sorrowing, ungrateful world, God will be able to look down and see one heart that is thankful for at least a fraction of His gifts.

3) In January, the Lord began to show me just how much I was in the habit of being ungrateful, and He has been reminding me continually to give thanks. Since I began to consider gratitude as one of the “must do” items on my daily agenda, my life has been so suffused with joy and delight in God, that I can’t attribute it to anything but His gracious blessing in return for a rather weak effort on my part. I can’t help but think how many more joyous people there would be in this world if we began to habitually count our blessings, and how much more God would be glorified in His people! Frankly, I don’t see how people who do not have a relationship with God, can find ultimate joy in this life, because the gifts are truly made precious by the love of the Giver. But those of us who are His by faith in Christ Jesus, have been absolutely deluged by the goodness of God, and gratitude ought to be only commonplace!

I’m going to endeavor to post my daily observations on my blog and on Facebook (that will help keep me going)so I invite you to join me on my thirty-day adventure—and if you’d like to try it yourself, I would love to read your experiences, too! It certainly would be a lovely contribution to the Facebook climate!

My idea was to do this for the month of March (which will be very timely, as March is, in my opinion, the most uncongenial month in New England). I’m a bit late with the first couple posts since I was working the first couple days and didn’t have time to post. But I’ll try to catch up here and go forward on a daily basis. Feel free to pester me if I’m slacking!

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