RIck Warren Archives - Jodie Berndt

The Most Life-Changing Habit for the New Year

01.10.2020

Note: This post appeared earlier this week on Club31Women. They’re featuring a “Fresh Start” series in January, with tips on everything from organizing your home (yes, please!), to meal-planning and parenting helps, to a 100-Day “Love You Better” Marriage Challenge in the New Year. Good stuff, all around!

The Most Life-Changing Habit for the New Year

Which habit do you want to carry into the next year?

We were three hours into a family car trip during the Christmas holidays when my daughter pulled that card out of the box. It was a good question. Looking ahead to 2020, which habit would I choose to continue?

My mind cataloged all the usual suspects: Exercise. Organization. Healthy eating. Financial fitness. I’d made small gains in each of these areas in 2019, and I knew I wanted to keep honing those habits. None of them, though, felt particularly dynamic or productive, at least not in a life-shaping way. I kept thinking.

And I remembered a line from Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life:

“No other habit,” Warren wrote, “can do more to transform your life and make you more like Jesus than daily reflections on Scripture.”

Daily Reflections on Scripture

Daily reflections on Scripture. That was it. That was the single most valuable habit I wanted to carry into the new year. I don’t just want to read my Bible; I want to reflect it. To examine it. And to let it examine me – shaping my thoughts, my actions, and my conversations – so that my life dovetails with God’s designs, and so that my prayers line up with his purpose.

Which is, I think, what Jesus was getting at in John 15:7, when he made one of the most jaw-dropping statements in the Bible. “If you abide in me and my words abide in you,” he said, “ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Put another way, what this promise means is that the more we allow Scripture to penetrate our hearts and our minds – pruning out the bad stuff and breathing life into what’s good – the more our desires (and our prayers) will reflect what God is already planning to do.

I can’t think of a better jumping-off place for 2020 than that.

And honestly? All of those other good habits and resolutions – from taking care of our bodies to managing money wisely – find their inspiration in Scripture. There is not a need we will face, a goal we can set, or a healthy discipline that we can practice that God has not already thought of, and provided for, in his word.

Effective time management? “Teach us to number our days so that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

Dealing with things like worry and fear? “Let us not be anxious or afraid, but instead cast our anxieties on you, knowing that you care for us.” (1 Peter 5:7)

Increasing your giving, or your kindness toward others? “Prompt us to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share.” (1 Timothy 6:18)

Those are just a few of the life-shaping prayer prompts we find in the Bible; there are countless more to discover. And the best part? The best part of Christ’s John 15:7 promise isn’t just the fact that we can ask for whatever we want. The best part is that when we take God up on his invitation – abiding in him, and letting his words abide in us – we get to live out John 15:8: We bring glory to God. We become productive, fruit-bearing people. And we discover the security of knowing that we are Christ’s disciples, that we belong.

31-Day Prayer Habit

If you like the idea of reflecting on Scripture each day – of allowing God’s word to shape your perspective, as well as your prayers – can I invite you to join me in a 31-Day Prayer Challenge? Let’s kick off the new year by looking at the Bible not just as something to read, but as something to pray. Let’s allow the words that we read – words first spoken by God – to animate our conversations with him.

Any passage will do (because again, Scripture is full of transformational promises, principles, and prayer prompts), but if you’d like some help getting started, you can download a printable 31-day calendar here.

There’s a different verse for each day of the month, with topics ranging from relationship needs, to character qualities, to ways to develop and strengthen your faith. Pray through each day’s verse slowly, out loud if you can. And whether you’re praying for a family member, a friend, or yourself, try to return to the prayer several times during the day so that God’s word will take root and give birth to hope in your heart.

“My word,” God promises in Isaiah 55:11, “shall not return empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose.”

So which habit will you carry into the new year? I hope you’ll join me in letting the power of God’s word accomplish his very best plans in 2020, both in your life and in the lives of the people you love.

Heavenly Father,

May we delight in your word, meditating on it day and night, so that we will yield fruit in season and prosper in all that we do. (Psalm 1:1-3)

Amen

And P.S., if you want to know where we got the question game for our car trip, it was a tip from my son-in-law, Charlie, who saw it advertised on Instagram and thought, “That looks like a Berndt thing.” He was right. We loved it. And if you want your own game, you can order it here.

(There’s also a set designed just for couples…which Charlie got in his stocking this year. #Mother-in-Law Goals.) 😊

(I only recommend books and other products I really like on this site, and if you order via a link that I share, Amazon sends me a small commission…which, as you know, I almost always spend on more books so I can share the really good ones with you!)

Created for Community: Burning Bright Together

01.17.2017

I wasn’t much of a Girl Scout. I finished my stint with the Brownies, but no sooner had I graduated to the green dress with the awesome badges-sash when my mom (who was a Den Mother) suggested that I might quit. I don’t think it was the prospect of cookie sales that damped her enthusiasm (we loved those, still do); all I can think is that maybe she made one-too-many sit-upons:

We made them – lots of them – to take along on our Big Camping Trip. But, for reasons that were never entirely clear to me, we never actually went camping. We went to the library. Where the sit-upons worked just fine.

All of which is to explain why I can read, but I cannot build a fire. The closest I ever came to having to build one for myself was in college, when a few girlfriends and I decided to skip the mayhem that was Fraternity Bid Night and go camping. Armed with a tin of Jiffy Pop and a bottle of wine, we drove to the outskirts of Charlottesville, parked our car on the side of the highway, and started hiking. Never mind that we didn’t have any wood (or, for that matter, any sit-upons); we had an entire semester’s worth of unread Wall Street Journals we’d subscribed to for an Investments class, and they burned remarkably well.

All of which is to further explain why, when it got cold this year and I threw a log into the fireplace, my husband looked at me like I was crazy.

“What?” I said. “I am going to put some newspaper in there. What’s the problem?”

“You can’t burn one log by itself,” Robbie explained. “You need a bunch of them.”

Robbie grew up on a farm. He lived in a drafty old stone house with charming fireplaces that a smallish person can actually stand up in, and his fire-building prowess (coupled with his ability to drive in the snow, which no boy I had ever dated could do) had me smitten from Day One. And so, when he said I needed more firewood, I knew better than to challenge his wisdom. I added more logs.

And maybe this is a stretch, but I couldn’t help but think about fire-building when I read this from @DailyKeller on Twitter:

If we are made in God’s image, and He is three persons – then at our fundamental core we are made for community.

I know Tim Keller is a big City Boy now, but I’m guessing that he has been camping. Or that he grew up on a farm. Because even though he doesn’t come right out and say it, I think what he really means is that people are like firewood. We can sputter along on our own, but if we want to realize our full potential – if we want to burn brightly and well – we need to spend time with other people, people who will ignite our faith and kindle our understanding of God and his purposes.

People with whom, and through whom, we can get to know Jesus better.

Do you have friends like that? If not, ask God to give you some. He’s the one who originally said it wasn’t good for us to be alone (Genesis 2:18), and that we are supposed to sharpen each other (Proverbs 27:17). He knows that we flourish in community. Here’s how he puts it in Ecclesiastes 4:9-12:

Two are better than one,
    because they have a good return for their labor:
If either of them falls down,
    one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
    and has no one to help them up.
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
    But how can one keep warm alone?

Two are better than one. We are created for community. And friendship, I think, is a blessing that God wants to give us.

Sometimes, though, the connections he ordains don’t look like we think they will. Be alert to the unexpected, life-giving friendships that might be in store for you this year.

And don’t be afraid to pursue them. Perhaps you know an older person who loves the Lord, and who might be willing to mentor you in the coming year. (It can’t hurt to ask.) Or maybe your church has a Bible Study or an Alpha Course you could join. Or maybe you’re feeling ambitious enough to start your own group. You could invite a few friends to come over and try one of Rick Warren’s Bible Study Methods, or maybe do one of the online studies offered by the gals at Proverbs 31 Ministries.

And wait. I just had another idea.

If you home or apartment is small, and you don’t have enough chairs for everybody, you could just go ahead and make your own sit-upons. It’s easy. All you need is a couple of vinyl tablecloths, a hole punch, some yarn, and that stack of old newspaper you’ve been meaning to burn…

Happy camping!

😉

(And okay, so while you’re making new friends and punching holes in your tablecloths, I’m gonna be taking a little vacay. I’ll still post Friday prayers, but the mid-week blogs won’t show up again until early February. Until then…lots of love! – J.)

Something you want, something you need…

12.29.2016

Something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read.

When I heard this little nugget of Christmas gift-giving wisdom from my friend Natalie (her mother-in-law likes to hit all four categories), I liked it. And I decided to use it as a bar against which I could measure the stocking stuffers I’d found for the men in my life.

Something you want? Golf balls and surf wax. Check.

Something you need? Razors and (because airport security has all of ours) pocket knives. Check.

Something to wear? Socks and boxer shorts. Because Christmas. Check.

Something to read? The Surfer’s Journal. And (because I am trying to drum up family interest in a visit to the Holy Land) a magazine featuring the spectacular vineyards of Israel. Check and check.

Having covered all the key bases, I was ready for Christmas morning. Still, though, something was missing. I hadn’t yet found the perfect “one-size-fits-all” gift, the annual follow-up to presents like The Posture Brace of 2013 (which was advertised as being “virtually invisible” under clothing but wasn’t, but which, looking back, had the unexpected upside of checking two boxes, since it was both something you wear and something you need).

I gave it some thought. And some prayer. And I finally came up with what I thought was a terrific gift idea:

Rick Warren’s Bible Study Methods. Rick Warren (the guy who gave us The Purpose Driven Life) knows that Bible study can be tricky. We don’t do it, he says, because we don’t really know how (nobody ever taught us), we’re not motivated (we haven’t yet experienced the joy of discovery), or maybe because we are just plain lazy (ouch). Warren’s goal is to get us over all three of these hurdles and help us find an approach to Bible reading that works – specifically and personally – for us. To that end, he offers 12 different methods we can try, along with step-by-step instructions for each.

Twelve different ways to study the Bible? I figured at least one of ’em would appeal to my guys.

Now before you go telling me that they would have rather had more golf balls, consider the categories. This gift was something that they could read. And need (because who among us couldn’t use a little professional help when it comes to Bible study?). They couldn’t wear the book, obviously, but since one of our favorite uncles starts most of his mornings by looking at his wife and saying, “Tell me what I want to do,” I figured that maybe I could tell Robbie, Geoff, Charlie, and Robbie Jr. what they really wanted in their stocking.

Read, need, and want. Three out of four. Brilliant.

And, just to be sure that the fellas appreciated what a good gift this was, I tweaked the wrapping. Any old Santa can give you a razor. But a book designed to help you grow in your understanding of Scripture?

Anyhow.

Truth be told, God gave me the book, too. Which is to say, I bought a copy for myself. Because this is the time of year when I always do two things:

First, I stop eating the Christmas cookies. (They are mostly gone, anyway, but come December 30 I start making a somewhat focused effort not to eat them. At least not until lunch.)

And second, I make a Bible reading plan. (I’ve written about this one before; click here to see last year’s ideas.) I figure that if I want to get to know God better (and I do), then I can’t just rely on my heart. I need to engage my head. I want to get to know God through the Bible, digging deep to unearth its riches – and letting them transform me. I want to get to the end of the year and say, “I grew. I got to know God better. I fell even more in love with him.

“I was changed.”

Do my guys want that too? I don’t know; I pray that they do.

I pray that all of us do. And if you’ve got your own favorite reading plans or study methods, I’d love to hear about them. Why not post a comment for others who might want to try what you like? There is not, obviously, any “right” way to read scripture; the key is mainly to grow in our faith, to fall deeper in love with our Heavenly Father, and to be equipped for whatever he has in store.

Because there’s a whole new year out there, just waiting for us to unwrap it.