I've always loved this week on the calendar. Anyone else? Besides the Thanksgiving Break (Thursday-Sunday), the week between Christmas and New Year's Day is the closest thing we have in our culture to a collective Sabbath week. Not everything is closed, and sure there's still work, but sandwiched between a couple long weekends, most peoples rhythms and deadlines slow down a bit. Regardless of whether you can take a week off work (if you've got it), I wanted to send you a quick list of four practices for this week especially that I've found life giving the last couple of years. 1. Rest - You've got to make the time, but for most of us, we really stink at this. We either drift into the realm of Netflix or Social Media (which is ok, but just be purposeful about it) or we find a bunch of stuff to keep us busy. Consider this fantastic Psalm: “Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with sentries will do no good. It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.” (Psalm 127:1–2, NLT) So quit worrying and rest a little bit ok? God loves you. And because he loves you, he wants you to take a load off your mind and shoulders. Rest! It's going to be ok...really! 2. Reflect - One of the things I typically do during this week is change out my calendar. Yes, I keep an old fashioned paper calendar in a leather binder (I'm that fancy). But as I take out the pages from the previous year, it's a helpful exercise to look back over everything that happened. This year (can I be honest?) I just trashed 2020! But later this week, I plan to sit with a hot cup of coffee and Bach (huge fan of his Cello suites in the background while I think...currently on while I'm writing this actually!) and go back over the last year. Where did I see God move? Were there any themes from the last year that are particularly important? Are there any lessons I need to take forward? Where was I disappointed (don't skip the hard questions)? Just take a bit of time, maybe 30 minutes to an hour, and reflect on where God moved in your life this last year. As a professor of mine once said, we only grow from experiences we reflect upon. So, don't waste your experiences of the last year. Allow the Spirit to do the necessary work in you. 3. Seek - It's also a great time to prepare your heart and mind for the year ahead. While there's a lot of ways you can do this, a simple way is to just ask God what he might have for you this year. Is there anything he wants to bring to your mind? Any practices, disciplines, words, scriptures that might be particularly useful for you in the year to come. One of the things I sensed last year was the need to be grateful....at the time I thought, "Yeah, cool, whatever, I can do that." And as January progressed, I sensed specifically that I needed to be more purposeful about keeping a record of places I saw God answer prayer. So, I wrote them down on a chalkboard in my office. I just kept a list. In January, that seemed like a nice idea. By April? By May? It was a tether for my soul. By late Spring and early Summer, I needed the tangible reminders of God's faithfulness to remember that yes, he loves me. And yes, he answers my prayers, even if he didn't answer the ones I thought he should when I thought he should. This time last year, I didn't see the giant pile of....trials...that 2020 would become. But God did. And he's always Good. Trust him to guide you into the year to come. 4. Consecrate - Finally, consecrate the year ahead to God. You can't determine everything that will happen. But, you can make the choice to surrender the year and all that is in it to the King of the Universe. This may be as simple as purposefully surrendering 2021 to God in prayer. Or, it may mean a more detailed kind of thing (like the Covenant Renewal Service - more on that Thursday). Whatever it is, surrender the year ahead to God and go into 2021 with the peace that God is good; he loves you; he will not leave you; and anything that you face in the year ahead is perfectly safe with him by your side. An Example: Because some of us like examples, I'll share with you my plan. First, I made some purposeful changes to unplug a bit. Second, I rearranged my calendar so I could minimize the amount of work I needed to do this week. Third, I plan on taking a half day to do the "work" I mentioned in points 2-4. Weather dependent, I'll either stick to my study or I'll go find a rock on a cliff somewhere. Either way, I'll bring a notebook and write down anything useful (or not useful) that might come to mind. Praying for you today, Steve