Opening My Heart to God: A Year of Prayer

This is my theme for this year.

What's a theme, you ask? Oh good. I didn't know either. Not until a few months ago when Mrs. Katherine Magnuson shared the most unusual message with the ladies of the Wednesday morning mom's group at our church: "Choosing a Theme for Direction and Focus."

What is a Theme?
The basic premise goes something like this: a theme provides a focus for one calendar year, giving direction and promoting intentionality in your life which otherwise might be missed. The key tool you use in this endeavor is a journal.

When I think of a journal I think of a little notebook with a beautiful cover in which you write eloquently about your deepest thoughts and grandest experiences. I don't keep a journal of that type as it tends to induce a ridiculous amount of guilt in me when I can't keep consistent records. When Benjamin was a tiny baby I tried in vain to keep meticulous day-by-day records of the caliber I found in the journal my mother gave me which recorded nearly every day of the first year of my life. At some point I realized that I didn't even enjoy the sweet little moments anymore because I felt so guilty that I wasn't writing them all down, at which point I released myself from that unrealistic self-imposed obligation and started this blog. Well, that's not the kind of journal I'm talking about. A theme journal has no rules.

My theme journal will be kind of like my scrapbook for 2011. (Except scrapbooks, in the usual fancy sense of the word, also make me break out in great, big, guilt-induced hives and that's not the kind of scrapbook I'm talking about either.) I will carry my journal with me nearly everywhere I go (no worries if I forget it though, since there aren't any rules!) and simply take notes. I will record thoughts that might come to me as we're sitting at the allergist. I will take notes on conversations, or sermons, or ladies events, or whatever seems note-worthy to me as I go about my weeks. I will write down Scriptures or words to songs that speak to me. I will write down funny things my kids say. I might stick my name tag from a meaningful event to one page or the program from a concert to another. I will write down lists of prayer requests, or places we've visited, or books I've read. And I'm not going to care so much about how it looks, just that it's there. In so doing I am saying, "I care about my experiences" and "I want to be intentional with my life."

A Year of Prayer
So, now that we're on the same page, let me tell you about my theme. Since the day Mrs. Magnuson spoke to us about the value of having a personal theme for your year I knew that I wanted to do this and it quickly followed that my theme would be prayer. I have had the sense that this is the next big area of growth in my spiritual journey for several months now; a theme seemed to be the perfect vehicle for this growth. So I knew I wanted to focus on prayer, but I still wanted to find some kind of a catchy title that really expressed what I was trying to accomplish. I googled every form of "quotations on prayer" I could think of, but still hadn't really found anything that hit me. As I was talking with Seth one evening, telling him what I was trying to accomplish, he suggested, "What about 'Opening My Heart to God'?" Yes! That's exactly what I want to accomplish! I want to learn to simply tell God about everything that is on my heart and thus grow deeper in my relationship with Him, just as I would a dearest friend. As I came back to this thought several days later it seemed, even better, to fit and I decided 2011 will be "Opening My Heart to God: A Year of Prayer."

One question I had as I began was: if I take notes on just, well, life ... everything ... how will my journal reflect my theme? Won't it just be a hodge-podge of random topics and thoughts? You would be amazed at how many insights I have gained, already!, from seemingly unrelated topics. In fact, it has really helped draw my attention to details I may have missed because of how they relate to prayer. In other words, it's working! It really is providing direction and focus to my experiences. I have found that instead of a hodge-podge, it's really all a strange and beautiful expression of the same music, weaving harmonies and counter-melodies in and around one theme to create a rich concerto.

What about you?
I bet you want a theme now. Guess what? You can get one. I know it's January 18th, but there are no rules so don't let that bother you. Here are some suggestions on how to find a theme:

• You don't have to find it right away
• Carry your journal with you (a big, blank sketchbook or similar, you can get them at Barnes and Noble for about $10). Take notes on your experiences and a theme will emerge.
• Ask yourself: what are my passions? what has God put on my heart? where do I need growth?
• Celebrate something (like a 10-year anniversary or a long-awaited graduation) all year long.
• Explore or discover something new. (What have you always wanted to learn more about?)
• Connect it to Scripture. Either take it out of Scripture or connect it back to, but use it to know God deeper in some way.

Here's to living intentionally!




P.S. If you decide to do it, please come back and leave a comment. I would love to hear what you come up with!

Great Is Thy Faithfulness!

"For it is you who light my lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. This God--his way is perfect; the word of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him." Psalm 18:28-30

This past week my brain unexpectedly started to process through some of the enormity of Seth's graduation in May. Previous reflection on that monumental event has left me with an overwhelming but vague sense of gratitude and relief--hardly interesting material for a blog post. Unsurprisingly, it was music that prompted my unexpected flow of thought.

Last Wednesday evening I was driving home from church, alone in Seth's car while he valiantly manned the minivan full of tired children. Tired of the mediocre music on the radio I fished around in the console for a CD. In the dark I pulled out an unknown disc and slid it into the player. It turned out to be an old rehearsal CD of church choir music.

I remember well the first choir rehearsal of that semester. Our family was in the middle of dissertation season and we had just experienced some difficult setbacks. As we sang through our new repertoire that evening it seemed to me that nearly every song was chosen especially for me. God ministered to my weary and battered soul that night, reminding me that He was faithful, that I had hope in Him, that He loved me, and that He would sustain me.

Returning, last Wednesday night, to dwell on these songs that had already impacted me so deeply was an amazingly joyful experience. I listened to lyrics which I had previously chosen by sheer faith in the truthfulness of God's Word to believe, now experientially knowing them to be true. I can, by God's grace, say:

"God has a plan, it’s not to harm me
But it’s to prosper me and to hear me when I call
He intercedes for me, working all things for my good
Though trials may come I have this hope"

I Have a Hope, Tommy Walker

Here are videos for three of the songs that inspired this post. Please excuse the cheesy media on the first two and the unidentified foreign language subtitles on the third.

A Guide to Resolutions in the New Year

This is not an update, although I hope to post one in the first part of this coming week. But I had to share this thought-provoking article:

Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year or On Your Birthday

Once, when the people of God had become careless in their relationship with Him, the Lord rebuked them through the prophet Haggai. "Consider your ways!" (Haggai 1:5) he declared, urging them to reflect on some of the things happening to them, and to evaluate their slipshod spirituality in light of what God had told them.

Even those most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think about the direction of their lives. It's so easy to bump along from one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where we're going and where we should be going.

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God.

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?

3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?

4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?

5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?

6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?

7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?

8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try to make this year different from last year?

9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?

10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

In addition to these ten questions, here are twenty-one more to help you "Consider your ways." Think on the entire list at one sitting, or answer one question each day for a month.

11. What's the most important decision you need to make this year?

12. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what's one way you could simplify in that area?

13. What's the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?

14. What habit would you most like to establish this year?

15. Who is the person you most want to encourage this year?

16. What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?

17. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?

18. What's one new way you could be a blessing to your pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?

19. What's one thing you could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children and grandchildren?

20. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read this year?

21. What one thing do you most regret about last year, and what will you do about it this year?

22. What single blessing from God do you want to seek most earnestly this year?

23. In what area of your life do you most need growth, and what will you do about it this year?

24. What's the most important trip you want to take this year?

25. What skill do you most want to learn or improve this year?

26. To what need or ministry will you try to give an unprecedented amount this year?

27. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your commute this year?

28. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better this year, and what will you do about it?

29. If those who know you best gave you one piece of advice, what would they say? Would they be right? What will you do about it?

30. What's the most important new item you want to buy this year?

31. In what area of your life do you most need change, and what will you do about it this year?

The value of many of these questions is not in their profundity, but in the simple fact that they bring an issue or commitment into focus. For example, just by articulating which person you most want to encourage this year is more likely to help you remember to encourage that person than if you hadn't considered the question.

If you've found these questions helpful, you might want to put them someplace—in a day planner, PDA, calendar, bulletin board, etc.—where you can review them more frequently than once a year.

So let's evaluate our lives, make plans and goals, and live this new year with biblical diligence, remembering that, "The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage" (Proverbs 21:5). But in all things let's also remember our dependence on our King who said, "Apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).

Copyright © 2003 Donald S. Whitney.

Copyright Disclaimer: All the information contained on the Center for Biblical Spirituality website is copyrighted by Donald S. Whitney. Permission granted to copy this material in its complete text only for not-for-profit use (sharing with a friend, church, school, Bible study, etc.) and including all copyright information. No portion of this website may be sold, distributed, published, edited, altered, changed, broadcast, or commercially exploited without the prior written permission from Donald S. Whitney.

Comfort

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.