One-thousand-one
Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. Proverbs 27:1
Insight
I’m not a fan of January.
It’s the onset of the winter doldrums for me, the holidays no longer a distraction to soften the dreary weather and short days. And I don’t think I’m alone. Almost two weeks ago was January 16th, a.k.a. “Blue Monday.”
Back in 2005, this is what a travel company coined the third Monday of January. It was derived from a formula that calculated weather conditions, the time passed since Christmas (and all the accompanying bills), as well as our collective, low motivation levels. Simply put, by mid-January, the shine of the new year has already worn off for many of us.
As I write this, it’s cold and rainy, my little desk heater is on full blast, and I’m on the heels of what I’m calling a “mid-life realization.” I turned forty-five a few days before Blue Monday. I recognize that too often in my life, I’ve defaulted to being a destination thinker and doer. I’ve gotten into the habit of putting off certain hopes and intentions to someday. In the winter, that means not even bothering until spring. In the overall scheme of life, it means delaying my efforts to some rosier point in the future when surely I’ll have better control and my success seems more likely.
This use to bring me comfort. That all my hopes of becoming would wait for me until the conditions were just right…when my imperfections weren’t quite so imperfect, when my ineptness would not feel so daunting, when my circumstances would be more manageable. But somewhere along the way to forty-five, these somedays have become a burden. Maybe what I’ve been calling patience and hope for the future is actually inertia and procrastination.
What God is bringing to my attention is that my actual lived life is made up of what I do…not what I intend to do. In perfect timing, I’m reminded of this quote from theologian NT Wright:
Virtue, in this strict sense, is what happens when someone has made a thousand small choices, requiring effort and concentration, to do something which is good and right but which doesn’t “come naturally”-and then, on the thousand and first time, when it really matters, they found that they do what’s required “automatically.”
My hope of becoming isn’t going to happen unless there is intentionality on my part, especially when facing the hard, the new, and the uncomfortable.
My spiritual formation- or stagnation- is the result of a thousand small choices I make daily.
So, as I head into the rest of 2023, My One Word is One-Thousand-One. I know, I’m kind of cheating with the hyphens, but I want to view this year through the lens of a different kind of destination thinking. This year, I am choosing to stop waiting for the illusive someday, and instead decide now to make the thousand small choices, no matter how challenging or mundane, out of obedience to God and what He is calling my attention to.
And look forward to that 1,001st time when that choice or action is no longer foreign, but completely natural, an expression of God’s work in me.
Reflection
Do you get stuck in destination thinking and/or doing?
What small choices can you start making today to move towards actively participating in your formation?
Prayer
Jesus, thank you for January, how it signals both an ending and a beginning. Thank you for Your hand on my life, and for showing me how my “someday thinking” has kept me stuck in the same old patterns and from what You desire for me. Jesus, renew in me a sense of adventure and a tenacity to take on the small thousand choices that are before me. May this year see my natural reactions and thoughts become an even more consistent reflection of You. In Your name, Jesus. Amen.
Donna Piner, Administrative Assistant at the Wilmington Campus, wrote today’s devotional.