Happy New Year!
Last week my cousin Stacy asked me if I typically made New Year resolutions or had any particular goals. I admitted I didn’t—I tend to shy away from specific plans or resolutions. I’m not sure if that’s because I hate to do what’s traditionally expected, or if it’s because I’m not very intentional about making plans or setting goals. I have a feeling it’s a bit of both.
“How about a word for the year?” Stacy asked. “Do you have those?”
Again, not really…
But her questions stuck with me. A couple days later, as my family drove miles and miles from visiting extended family in Michigan and Pennsylvania, back to our home in East Texas, I read a friend’s end-of-the-year letter describing her method for taking a day to assess the year past, and look toward the year ahead with intention. I have to admit, I read it feeling partly overwhelmed. Every time I hear people describe their methodical process of organizing life I get fidgety. It’s not that I don’t want to get organized and plan, but the thought of sitting down and working through specific questions always sends me running away to something else. I have a book to read! Dinner needs to get made! There are so many things to do rather than work through diagnostic questions!
At the same time, as I read through the letter, another part of my brain stuck with it, and I thought, “Maybe I could do something like this. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take the time to sort through some things…”
We’re home from our journey now, and we have a week before all the school things start back up. While I know some of this week will be organizing details for the school semester, there is more time available than usual, and I want to take some of that to think through questions and possibly plan. I know to hold my plans loosely, that’s no question; I’m happy to let God do the work he needs to do. But being organized and intentional is not a bad thing.
This morning I woke up and had some extra time before the family emerged. My one year Bible beckoned me from my side table. I finished it up yesterday in the waning of the year, a ritual I’ve managed to go through in the past three years. My edition is one my dad gave me back in high school for a challenge, and I’ve come back to it off and on over the years. It’s the one method of consistent Bible reading that’s worked for me. There’s something about having each passage laid out specifically each day that keeps me turning the pages throughout the year. When I miss days, it’s easy for me to catch up—the dates are all right there, and I got over any guilt in that area years ago. Three years of reading through the same edition has led to emerging associations, too: I can remember events of life when I reread certain passages, and I look forward to parts that I know will come at certain times of the year. I know I’ll start off fast with the Genesis narrative and the Gospels, that I’ll be hanging out with the kings of Judah and Israel in midsummer, that Isaiah will kick off the new school year along with the Epistles, and that the prophets and John’s Revelation will be a clarion call to wrap up the year. (There’s something deeply satisfying to read the final prophets and Revelation during Advent.)
The other day, though, as I started to think about sitting down to plan, I pondered if I wanted to try something different this year for Bible reading. There are lost of options: I could take a passage and read it until I’d memorized it, or work through a book inductively. Maybe I could actually get through more of the spiritually challenging nonfiction books I’m always wanting to read, but never get to. I didn’t have the time or mental energy to come up with a plan between Friday and today, though, so when my trusty one year Bible waved at me this morning I decided it certainly wouldn’t hurt to start with that. And so I did, and the familiar words flowed through me: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” There is something so absolutely grounding about those words. Day one covers the first two chapters of Genesis and of Matthew—the creation of the world and the birth of Christ. I can’t think of a better place to begin the year.
I don’t know exactly how things will flow this year, or if plans I make will come to pass, but it’s nice to have one thing settled.
Oh, and I think I have a word for the year, too: Light. Why “light”? I’ll ponder that some more to see if I can put my thoughts into words, and come back to it in another post.
