Sunday, January 7, 2007

I have survived my first round of accountability for the goals I set forth this new year. I am choosing to pursue this year one week at a time. I can’t look ahead to December – or February – without becoming overwhelmed by all that I feel called to pursue and accomplish. But I can look ahead to next Sunday. And that was pretty much the way I tackled the week behind me. With each choice I faced, I just thought of the accountability phone call that I knew would happen this afternoon and made my decision according to how I wanted to answer the questions posed to me.

The week has been delightfully exhausting. Falling asleep each night was no problem – with the exception of the times that my sore, surprised-by-exercise muscles were screaming at me. But there is a marked difference between going to bed tired because I’ve stayed up too late just wasting time and going to bed tired because I put in a good day’s work.

I learned some things along the way. James 4:8 says “Come near to God and he will come near to you…” I learned that verse back when I was about four years old and the way to learn it went more like “Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you.” But either way you look at it, the message remains. This week I did some coming near…some drawing nigh. And on more than one occasion I got the “God-goose-bumps” as I call them.

Friday was such a day. I woke up at the way too early crack of dawn and scooted up in my fleece sheets (trying not to knock the cat out of the bed) to get my Bible and my journal. I read my short morning devotional, I read my faith verse of the day, I read the passage about putting on the armor of God, and I was scribbling away some early morning thoughts to God. Now typically neither of us expect those thoughts to make too much sense, but on Friday, my mind had a worry. This faith study God has drawn me to do is eventually going to result in some sort of hands-on training. This both excites and petrifies me.

For some reason, that day, I had a money worry on my mind. I wrote in my journal something to the effect of “would I really be able to live a life of financial faith?” Part of me hated to ask, because I was afraid God would say, “Well how about we get rid of your job and have everything in your house break down at once and see how you do?” (And given that this week I’ve had two light fixtures re-break, my computer spazz out, and my hairdryer bite the dust, this seemed a very real concept.) So I just posed the question, shut the journal, and crawled out of the oh-so-comfy bed to start getting ready. As I stood up, I noticed my other devotional book on the bottom shelf of my night stand. I’d been reading in it only at night, but that day, I decided to go ahead and pick it up.

There were several paragraphs that day – sometimes it’s a short reading, and sometimes not. But right in the middle of all it had to say was the sentence “Do not fear poverty.” Well! I guess that takes care of that!

And so the week went – I asked questions and somehow God sent answers. And I went back to James 4:8, remembering (how I remember this, I do not know) the hot summer day of long ago when I learned that verse from Mom’s construction paper alphabetical scripture lesson. (It was the “D” verse.) Back on that day, it was just a verse to learn because it was time for the next one in the alphabetical list.

But this week that verse came to life – as it has before. Some people may look at my five covenants for my relationship with God (as well as the rest of my list of 25) and call the whole thing too ambitious. But God is out to prove to me that it’s not too overwhelming. It’s just a week at a time of drawing close to Him and depending on Him to give me the energy for that day of that week. And in the process, He’s out to show me so much more than I know right now.

He keeps His promises. He expects me to keep mine too.