I was thrilled to watch the momentum last week’s post created. After last Monday’s letter, I got all manner of messages to say you’d finally gotten back to that long neglected thing, the one you were putting off because you mistakenly assumed it would take a lot more than twenty minutes. You finally decided twenty minutes was enough time to make a small effort. You decided twenty minutes—multiplied—was enough time to begin making some incremental progress.
Hooray for you! I celebrate that you stepped toward the humility of twenty minutes, that you offered those minutes like loaves and fishes to the One who establishes the work of our (weak and fragile) hands. I want us all to join the twenty-minutes club, to see what God might do with our crumbs of time. “Being impoverished and ill-equipped as we are, we will look to the grace of God and to the sanctifying work of the Spirit to accomplish his purposes in and through us this day, as we, in grateful response, seek to choose that which pleases him” (Every Moment Holy, Volume I, p. 4).
This week, however, I want to offer a reflection that counters some of what I said in last week’s post. Consider this an attempt at and, rather than but. In other words, it’s not a revision of what I said previously, but an important addition.
Here it is: Practice twenty-minute acts of faithfulness—and observe the more patient time that many projects require.
If you haven’t noticed already, I’ve changed the name of this newsletter from Post Script to A Habit Called Faith. This decision was not a twenty-minute decision but a decision resulting from a prayerful season and recent weeks of collaboration. It was a decision that required more patience than twenty minutes.
Some of you have been reading my work since my first blog, Finding My Pulse. The name of that blog seems a bit silly to me now. I remember that my very first post was a reflection on a biography I’d read about Julia Child. I couldn’t help noticing the risk Child took to enroll herself in classes at the Cordon Bleu in Paris, she having no clear sense that the financial investment would pay off. Because her husband was the primary wage-earner of the family, she felt a little sheepish to ask for that money. To her delight, he was enthusiastic about the proposal . . . and you know the rest of the story.
Pulse was a way to talk about my emerging desire to write more personally and publicly. Much of this is detailed in my first book, Teach Us to Want, and it still surprises me for how regularly that book sells. I suppose it might say that we want to get our arms around the way we might think most helpfully, most wisely about desire in the context of faith, how we can heed both its caution and call.
After years of Finding My Pulse, I left the world of blogging and began publishing more frequently on other sites like Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition. Because my writing was scattered across the internet, I started sending a monthly newsletter to subscribers to help them keep up with my work. I called that letter Miscellany, hoping the name captured some of its hodge-podge quality. But a couple of years into Miscellany, the letter was getting much too long, much too unwieldy. I couldn’t write it in twenty minutes, much less two hours, and this didn’t seem to serve either writer or reader well. When the Substack platform started growing, I made yet another change. I renamed the letter Post Script and started to send it weekly.
Originally, these weekly Monday letters had a structure to them: I wrote about Scripture, about habits, about books, then—on the last week of the month—let myself write about anything I wanted. I’ve always thought predictability serves both the writer and the reader: the writer, in reducing the choices that need to be made when thinking of a topic; the reader, in making the important considerations about whether to subscribe. At the start of this calendar year, that structure soon gave way to a little more freedom, which I’ve really enjoyed.
In recent months, as I’ve been finishing final work on my graduate thesis, considering my next book project, and generally planning for 2024, I’ve been inhabiting the patient time I want to suggest to you. It’s the time it takes to settle into quiet and discern God’s voice. It’s the time it takes to consider decisions (and their alternatives). It’s the time it takes to try on solutions for size (and then take them back because they don’t fit after all).
In this season of patient time, I’ve been asking larger questions like: what work is God calling me to in this next season? What yeses should I say? What noes will be important for those yeses? I no longer believe what I was once taught, that if you make a decision, you must stick to it at all costs. (This was insisted upon by a certain reading of Psalm 15:4). Of course, I’m not arguing we should be changing our minds willy-nilly (and leaving others in the lurch). But there has to be room made for growing in wisdom. Wisdom is a capacity that grows in us as we are more and more formed into the likeness of Jesus Christ, who is the wisdom of God. Wisdom can never be had all at once.
Some things are growing clearer to me—about the invitations of this next season—as a result of this patient, prayerful time, and I could summarize the learning here.
1. The answer is not more.
I don’t think God is calling me to more work in this next season. No, I’m generally happy with the heft of my work life. This is to say that the hours feel about right for the work of writing and speaking, coaching and teaching. The boundaries I’ve set around my work hours—as a result of my rule of life practice—allow me to yet be a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend, a neighbor, a church member, a small group leader, a self. I am not suggesting that every week is balanced, nor that I escape the absorbing craziness of a deadline. But I am saying that, on the whole, I feel decently rested, even with a consistently full schedule. I can’t imagine where more would fit.
Instead of more work, I want to engage more focused work. That’s the impetus behind this name change, from Post Script to A Habit Called Faith. As I continue writing and teaching and speaking, I hope people can immediately recognize my aims.
2. Collaboration is key.
In recent months, several people have asked, on different occasions, about my team. “I don’t have a team,” I’ve told them. But it got me thinking: why don’t I hire someone for some hours of help? I’ve had admin help in the past thanks to Stephanie Amores who for years, edited and formatted Miscellany and helped to launch Keeping Place, Surprised by Paradox, and A Habit Called Faith. Shout-out to Stephanie, who now homeschools her four children and has, as one might imagine, a little less time.
I decided that for this season, I really wanted thinking help. Sure, administrative know-how would be a plus, but I wanted someone to help me think about creative direction and vocational faithfulness. I have more to tell you about this in the weeks to come, but I’m grateful for those who have been willing to serve as conversation partners and have been helping me think about the nature of the work I do and how it might be improved. It reminds me of the fundamental truth of human flourishing, as God designed it: it is not good for human beings to be alone.
3. Teaching is integral.
As I’ve sought advice, I’ve heard people affirm the satisfaction I seem to be taking in teaching my rule-of-life workshops. (P.S. There are 2024 dates out, and you can sign up here.) As I’ve begun to name the importance of teaching to my vocational calling, this is giving me permission to re-imagine my work around Substack. I’ve started to ask what kind of community might be built and what kind of teaching might I offer to that community. These would not be initiatives to simply grow a subscribership, but rather good-faith efforts to help others learn.
I don’t have that all sorted quite yet, so stay tuned for more announcements. But I know this much. That I needed a kind of banner under which people could congregate. A Habit Called Faith does that. Mostly, the name captures why you’ve been reading here already: because I’m talking about faith as a habit, as a practice. I’m writing and teaching about this because I want to see all of us formed and transformed into the glory of the God-Man Christ. I want to see Christians sent into the world with great courage and love.
In short, the new name suggests these won’t just be miscellaneous offerings. They won’t be postscript words offered after other things have been said. If you’re reading here, it’s not because I’m finding my pulse but because you, dear reader, want to practice your own habit called faith.
So welcome—again.
I finally had a chance to sit down and read this and I'm so looking forward to this shift in focus for your Substack.
There are several things you’ve included that are timely and encouraging. Thank you!
I love the call to Faith and using our time to show our love to others.
I love the call to gathering wise counsel.
Have a blessed week🍁