Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Paul Tripp: Trading One Dramatic Resolution for 10,000 Little Ones

Hello all,

We're back! Okay...so that might have been a little dramatic, but as much as we love holiday's and the craziness of "catching up" after holiday's we have really missed posting here regularly. From here on though we plan to be posting everyday and have a great line up of material to begin with.

Let's get going!

No doubt many of you have participated in the ceremonial making of resolutions on or around New Years Eve. For some reason our culture loves making resolutions in a ceremonial fashion and clearly there is value in making resolutions if they help us to set good goals and to pursue those goals until they are reached. Unfortunately though, the vast majority of resolutions made at New Years (or at other times of the year) are not kept by their makers. Some have even said, with good reason, that New Years resolutions are little more than a ra ra attempt at bettering ourselves and - more importantly - making us feel better about how hard we are working to "do better" at a million and one different things.

All this begs a question. Are resolutions of any value? What is it about the way we make resolutions that gives them such a low "success" rate?

In his article titled 'Trading One Dramatic Resolution for 10,000 Little Ones' Paul Tripp suggests that our entire way of thinking about and using resolutions needs to be corrected.

Allow me to quote the most relevant portions of his article:

Rethinking the Annual Ritual

Why am I telling you this story? Well, it's that season once again. It's the fodder for blogs, newspaper articles, TV magazine shows and way too many Twitter posts. It is the time for the annual ritual of dramatic New Year's resolutions fueled by the hope of immediate and significant personal life change.

But the reality is that few smokers actually quit because of a single moment of resolve, few obese people have become slim and healthy because of one dramatic moment of commitment, few people who were deeply in debt have changed their financial lifestyle because they resolved to do so as the old year gave way to the new, and few marriages have been changed by the means of one dramatic resolution.

Is change important? Yes, it is for all of us in some way. Is commitment essential? Of course! There is a way in which all of our lives are shaped by the commitments we make. But biblical Christianity—which has the gospel of Jesus Christ at its heart—simply doesn't rest its hope in big, dramatic moments of change.

Living in the Utterly Mundane

The fact of the matter is that the transforming work of grace is more of a mundane process than it is a series of a few dramatic events. Personal heart and life change is always a process. And where does that process take place? It takes place where you and I live everyday. And where do we live? Well, we all have the same address. Our lives don't careen from big moment to big moment. No, we all live in the utterly mundane.

Most of us won't be written up in history books. Most of us only make three or four momentous decisions in our lives, and several decades after we die, the people we leave behind will struggle to remember the event of our lives. You and I live in little moments, and if God doesn't rule our little moments and doesn't work to recreate us in the middle of them, then there is no hope for us, because that is where you and I live.

The little moments of life are profoundly important precisely because they are the little moments that we live in and that form us. This is where I think "Big Drama Christianity" gets us into trouble. It can cause us to devalue the significance of the little moments of life and the "small-change" grace that meets us there. And because we devalue the little moments where we live, we don't tend to notice the sin that gets exposed there. We fail to seek the grace that is offered to us.

The 10,000 Little Moments

You see, the character of a life is not set in two or three dramatic moments, but in 10,000 little moments. The character that was formed in those little moments is what shapes how you respond to the big moments of life.

What leads to significant personal change?

10,000 moments of personal insight and conviction
10,000 moments of humble submission
10,000 moments of foolishness exposed and wisdom gained
10,000 moments of sin confessed and sin forsaken
10,000 moments of courageous faith
10,000 choice points of obedience
10,000 times of forsaking the kingdom of self and running toward the kingdom of God
10,000 moments where we abandon worship of the creation and give ourselves to worship of the Creator.

And what makes all of this possible? Relentless, transforming, little-moment grace. You see, Jesus is Emmanuel not just because he came to earth, but because he makes you the place where he dwells. This means he is present and active in all the mundane moments of your daily life.


There is a lot of meat in the above and I wish I could comment but time is short and I must run. I highly recommend that you read the entirety of Mr. Tripps article here.

God bless!

3 comments:

  1. So true! I actually decided not to make any resolutions this year, and Mr. Tripp gave my reason.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good for you, Jennifer! Maybe you could keep us updated on how it works out for you through your blog. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great point from Dr. Tripp. The will of God is found in the seemingly "unexciting" decisions we face day to day. But they are decision of faithfulness which build upon one another to make us who we are.

    ReplyDelete