Happy New Year!

Happy new year to everyone.  Since I'm not feeling particularly creative or articulate at the moment I thought I would link to a couple of other posts where people share their New Year's Resolutions

Terry Pruitt's are here.

Doug Groothius doesn't have resolutions for the new year, he has a series of 15 refusals for the New Year.

And I am eagerly awaiting Joe Carter's resolutions for 2007.  In case he doesn't post new ones you shouldn't miss last year's resolutions.  Joe is my kind of guy - he believes in making achievable resolutions like gaining weight, eating more fast food and being happy with the shape he is in. 

As for me, I'm pretty burned out on resolutions.  But if I have to make a resolution it will be this:

I resolve to be an ordinary faithful guy and to not attempt anything spectacular for God in 2007.

Who knows, spectacularity may find its way to my doorstep, but I'm going to do my best to avoid chasing it.

This comes from two sources.  First of all, I am preaching through Matthew and am on the doorstep of the Sermon on the Mount right now, so I have been reading and studying ahead.  It occurs to me that the Sermon on the Mount is one of the clearest pictures of what a Christian looks like and it further occurs to me that it enjoins no great feats of spiritual derring-do on the Christian. 

It says that the Christian is one who keeps his word, gets over his anger, doesn't call people names, makes friends with people who are mad at him, doesn't retaliate when someone treats them bad, quits worrying, stays faithful to his wife, and hides his spirituality. 

None of that is particularly spectacular, nor is it particularly religious.  The religious people get condemned in Matthew 6:1-8 for practicing their piety in public and the people who attempted to do "great things for God" get sent straight to hell in Matthew 7:22-23.

The other motivation for this came in a quote from Jim Palmer, the author of Divine Nobodies (not the great pitcher for Orioles):

“God has been trying to free me from the burden of doing something spectacular for him. It has a way of distracting you from the opportunities to be salt and light where you are…I’m starting to recognize that I am immersed in a sea of hurting people every day. If I simply pay attention and follow the promptings of the Spirit in all these little ways, my life is ‘ministry.’” What is at the bottom of our need to do some “great” thing for God? Why do we tend to discount or not value how God works through us along the everyday paths of life? How could you envision or describe your everyday life as a walking “ministry”?

Comments

[SolaG]

I'm with you on New Year's Resolutions. Even Jonathan Edwards found as he grew older that he was incapable of keeping his resolutions and simply stopped making them. Have a blessed New Year!

[Rhonda]

love what you have to say about living out the book of Matthew. This is inspiring!
that's where "the river runs deep"

[Russ]

I find that being ordinary is a very blessed state of being. May we all follow the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and remain simply faithful.

[Gavin White]

Happy New Year!