Happy New Year!  I appreciate you, the reader, and how so many of you encouraged me throughout 2013.

So do you have big resolutions that you’re sharing with friends and family today?

Perhaps it is a quiet thought about change that you are storing up in your heart.

I’d like to encourage you today…

In his article, Trading One Dramatic Resolution for 10,000 Little Ones at Desiring God, Paul Tripp says this:

“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.  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.”

He gives a great reminder to us this new day of 2014 that the little moments are where we truly live and where we are shaped.

Are you currently trusting that Christ is with you and working in each little moment of your daily life?

Tripp gives me a dramatic reminder through his list below of what leads to change:

“You see, the character of a life is not set in two or three dramatic moments, but in 10,000 little moments.”

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.”

He also reminds me that change is not all about what WE do.  It is mostly about what HE is doing in us as we cooperate:

“And what is he doing? In these small moments, he is delivering every redemptive promise he has made to you. In these unremarkable moments, he is working to rescue you from you and transform you into his likeness. By sovereign grace, he places you in daily, little moments that are designed to take you beyond your character, wisdom, and grace so that you will seek the help and hope that can only be found in him. In a lifelong process of change, he is undoing you and rebuilding you again — exactly what each one of us needs.”

I highly recommend reading Tripp’s article before going any further into 2014.  It is a great reminder that commitments are good, but, trusting and yielding to the Lord in all of our smaller moments is where change truly happens.

Blessings to you in 2014!

photo credit: http://www.happynewyear2014plus.com/