grOWth

Happy New Year!

After moving to a new place and a wonderful Christmas with all our kiddos, life seems to be getting back to a “normal” rhythm.

I hope your holidays were filled with family and friends and a renewed sense of awe in the greatest Gift ever given.

And now, onto a year just born – 2017. Wide open with possibility and promise.

But, I’ve gotta be honest.  I’m going into this new year with great hope and a decent amount of trepidation. (I’m using a fancier word for fear because fear is not allowed in my heart or vocabulary, Silly, I know, but bear with me…:-) )

To me, trepidation means that I’m willing (at least somewhat) to do what’s ahead, what God’s asking, but I’m aware that it’s bigger than I know what to do with:

i.e. – growth spurt ahead

We all know what growth requires, don’t we?  Getting out of the comfortable seats in our current boxes.  Expanding our hearts and minds to to allow room for what God is teaching us.  Doing hard things.

GrOWth with a capital OW!

Ugh.  Do we really want to do this?

It will shake up our timetables sometimes.  It will require some sacrifice of old patterns and habits.  It will chafe against our natural tendencies once in a while.  It will challenge our thoughts and actions.

Everything in us wants to run from this, right?

But the alternative is looking in the mirror a year from now and seeing the exact same person I see today.  I’m not okay with that.  Are you?

Charles Spurgeon put it like this: “Growth can be painful, change can be painful but nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don’t belong.”

It all sounds so overwhelming.  Too big.  Too much.  My tendency toward anxiety begins to flicker in my gut when I think about it.

Still, I can’t shake the fact that God keeps calling me to something more.  Something that He has for me that I haven’t yet experienced.  Areas of growth that will draw me closer to His heart and will ready me for what’s next.

Growth that will help me to, as the old song says, “see Him more clearly, love Him more dearly, follow Him more nearly”, so that I can live out His purpose for me and impact the world around me in the way He intended.

And the desire for that growth is stirred within us by God Himself.  To quote Spurgeon again:  “Every growth of spiritual life, from the first tender shoot until now, has been the work of the Holy Spirit…. The only way to more life is the Holy Spirit. You will not even know that you want more unless He works in you to desire it.”

Yep.

So, how do we start?

Well, I’m a big fan of breaking things down into bite-sized pieces.  So here’s how it will look for me:

1.  For one year, I’m going to choose two areas I want to see growth in my life. Areas that God has woken up with an incessant longing. One for my mind, one for my soul.
2.  For one year, I will do one “hard” thing a day, with Jesus’ help and continual prayer, that will work my mind’s and soul’s muscles and stimulate their growth.
3. For one year, this will be my focus, and you will be my witnesses to hold me accountable.
4. For one year, this blog will document that specific growth and its specific steps.  God’s word in regard to each step. My hope is that it will be an encouragement to your own growth, as well.  I would love to be part of your growth journey, too, and celebrate each step with you!

Will you join me?  Won’t it be exciting in 2018 to look back and see what God has done?! To see a different you in that mirror?  A different me?

Today I will pray about all of this and tomorrow I will post my specifics.  I would love, love, love to have you do this with me. What are your growth area goals this year? What specific prompts has God whispered in your ear?

See you tomorrow!

J

Philippians 1:3-6, 9-11 –  I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus... And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.