January 3, 2022
Your most important new habit
As I finished my Bible reading plan at the end of December, I found myself in the unfamiliar territory of the Minor Prophets. Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi aren’t books you naturally turn to when you need wisdom for a decision or encouragement for a hardship. These are books that make thunderous pronouncements of judgment, and when you put them alongside the Book of Revelation, which also comes at the end of the year’s reading plan, it can feel jarring.
But for all the discordant notes these books sound, I’m always glad to be reading them during Advent. Advent is a reminder that we live in the time being, as poet W.H. Auden has put it. All time is in-between time.
Reading the Prophets, there’s no getting around human sin. The good news, however, is that there’s also no getting around divine stubbornness and love. Human beings have turned from the God who made them—and as the prophet Zechariah has put it, God has “whistled to them [so] they will come running,” (10:8). “I will strengthen Judah and save Israel; I will restore them because of my compassion. It will be as though I had never rejected them, for I am the LORD their God, who will hear their cries,” (10:6). God is the patient, prodigal Father, longing for the return of his wandering children.
At the edge of this new year, with the calendar pages still blank, it’s good to remember that God’s love is wider, higher, longer, deeper than we’d ever think. January is a time for beginning again—and for remembering that beginning again is possible because of the coming and dying of Jesus Christ. The regrets, the griefs, the losses, the sins of 2021: that’s all in the rearview mirror now. In this new year, we are invited to take the hand of the God who “stretched out the heavens, laid the foundations of the earth, and formed the human spirit,” (Zech. 12:1). By God’s own power and love, he can redeem what we’ve broken.
I’ve been curious to learn that the word faith in the New Testament is a notoriously difficult word to translate. Although we might think that faith is simply the cerebral operation of believing God, scholars have said that the word also implies trusting and obeying. The translation difficulty is, of course, that you don’t want to ever imply that faith is a work by which we impress God. On the other hand, you also don’t want to give the impression that faith is a matter of saying a certain kind of prayer once—and then acting as if your life were your own.
No, faith is about believing in God—and also belonging to him.
In this first week of the first month of the year, I am less interested to write about the habits required for our resolutions: losing weight, giving more generously, praying more. Habits will no doubt be required for sustaining any of the change we resolve. Instead, I find myself wondering about the practices that would lead us to trust God more confidently.
The most important habit we need in the year ahead is the habit of faith.
In the last many months, I’ve found myself drawn to the biblical image of God as shepherd. Acknowledging our need to be shepherded situates us in the terrain of the prophets. It says, how easily we might lose our way. But it also recalls that God’s voice is one his sheep recognize, that even if we should wander from the path, he will come whistling after us. The grace of God assures we’ll come running when he does.
Whatever we resolve to do or become or accept in the year ahead, I hope we’ll remember that God goes ahead.
Happy New Year!
Jen
P.S. Christianity Today published a piece I’ve recently written called, “There’s No Such Thing as Time Management.” It might be a relief for those of us already feeling burdened by the expectations of the New Year. “As a Christian, I know time matters to God, but I’m beginning to think it matters less to him in the frantic ways I’ve imagined. It’s certainly true we’ve only recently conceived of time as measurable and instrumental, as something to be used or wasted, saved or spent.”