![Snapshot of A New Year [‘22]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/54034af8e4b0bc1fe0fd8c62/1642779284870-D2TECMW91Q28G91PCR14/IMG_8014.jpeg)
Snapshot of A New Year [‘22]
“A joyful life of grace towards others grows best in the soil of gratitude.”
Increasingly it has become evident to me the toll of social media has on my mental health. While I do appreciate the convenience and connection of these apps, I need to take a long pause and create permanent NEW habits. With email and text I can still maintain connection with those closest to me. This platform still allows me to share my photography without the harmful consequences of scrolling such as time wasting, the barrage of opinions, constant vitriol and misinformation as well as the temptation to compare myself to others’ highlight reels. In addition to sharing photos, I thought I would share the story behind a photo at times, plus favourite excerpts from my daily devotional, “New Morning Mercies,” by Paul David Tripp. I find this devotional challenging, convicting and comforting- everything a book designed to get one closer to God should do. To me, this seems fun, meaningful and perhaps most of all, beneficial.
So rest is never found in the quest to understand it all. No, rest is found in trusting the One who understands it all and rules it all for his glory and good. - January 2
I need the presence and power of the Holy Spirit living inside me because sin kidnaps the desires of my heart, blinds my eyes, and weakens my knees. My problem is not just the guilt of sin; it’s the inability of sin as well. - January 7
Your hope of enduring is not to be found in the character of your strength, but in the Lord’s. - January 12
You can take your life off your shoulders because God has placed it on his. - January 13
Real, sturdy, lasting peace, peace that doesn’t rise and fall with circumstances, isn’t to be found in picking your life apart until you have understood all of the components… peace is found only in trust, trust of the One who is in careful control of all the things that tend to rob you of peace. - January 14
That mercy comes to you in a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his mercy is always fresh, uniquely fashioned for the sin struggles of this new day. - January 16
So not matter how it looks at your street level, your world is not out of control; no, it is under careful rule… That rule has you in view! - January 17
And the life I now life in the flesh by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me [in the light of the gospel right here, right now]. - January 18
A joyful life of grace towards others grows best in the soil of gratitude. - January 19
But here is the radical truth of the gospel. Hope is not a situation. Hope is not a location. Hope is not a possession. Hope is not an experience. Hope is more than an insight or truism. Hope is a person, and his name is Jesus. He comes to you and makes a commitment of hope. - January 20
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air: They do not sow or reap or gather into barns—and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? - Matthew 25-27 [January 21. This came to mind on a walk with Maple that the truth is worry isn’t productive and protective. It’s not of God. Whether from an intrusive thought, confirmations bias, external or internal circumstances, fear isn’t something I need to accept- and certainly not embrace].
So you get up every morning and give yourself to doing the things that God says are good, because you know that if grace has put eternity in your future there’s nothing that you could ever do in God’s name that is in vain.- January 21
There is no greater argument for our need for grace than the ease which our hearts fall under the rule of things other than God. - January 22
Sturdy hope that does not vanish with the constant changes in situations, locations, and relationships that make up all our lives – hope that will simply never, ever disappoint us – can be found in only one place. It is not to be found in a certain thing. It is, in fact, a person, Jesus. - January 23
God didn’t give us his grace in order to make our little claustrophobic kingdoms of one work, but you invite us to a much, much better kingdom. - January 24
But when God’s call of mercy collides with your lack of mercy, you begin to see yourself with accuracy. You begin to confess that you don’t have inside you what God requires. You begin to admit to yourself and others that you cannot live up to God’s standard, so you begin to cry out for the very thing that you have refused to give others. And as you remember that God’s mercy is your only hope and you meditate on the grandeur of the mercy that has been showered on you, you begin to want to help others experience that same mercy. You see, to the degree that you forget the mercy you’ve been given, it is easier for you not to give mercy to others. - January 26
A highlight this month was visiting our city’s Festival of Lights presented by Sky Castle. We are so fortunate to be able to play tourists in this pretty city!
