Daniel Jay Bryant

It’s my prayer that this season for many of Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday, and now Easter has been and will continue to be one where Christians repent, refocus, and are more intentional with their lives.

Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are more real to us now than any other time of the year.

With that said, I’m going to begin blogging, tweeting, and inviting other people to join me in answering the question:

“How can we honor God with our lives right now?”

What can we expect? Community. Scripture. Justice. Dinner. Accountability. & More.

With anything that we end up doing, feel free to jump in at any point.

OK, lets get moving. We’ve got work to do.

I have been inundated with lots of people that I know coming up with some awesome New Years Resolutions. To name a few there’s Ryan Wheat’s Blog http://project3hundred.wordpress.com/ in his words: “In the Marine Corps 300 is the highest score attained on the PFT or Physical Fitness Test. After 8 years in the Corps I never attained a perfect 300.”

There’s Amanda Steed’s blog http://iamamandasteed.com/ where she’s committing to blogging once a week, and throwing music in the mix, some of her own recordings, and covers as well. My wife is even chiming in with a few less concrete goals, but we’re working on that.

I felt that I was lacking direction when I saw others turning over a new leaf and I didn’t have something that mattered to me. And not that I need something, but I love taking control of where my life is going, and being able to measure my progress.

I have a primary New Years Resolution that is very tangible:

Study the New Testament in 2010
I LOVE God’s word. Period. I’ve read the New Testament, but not through in one year. Much less, with depth and retention. This should give me more direction and motivation to wake up and dive in to the Bible.  It came to me yesterday when I was thinking about what book to read, making good use of my down time after my oral surgery. (I’m recovering quickly, thanks for asking.) So how will this be measured?

1. Quality over Quantity. I don’t want to rush through, but rather dive in and explore.
2. Study my NIV Study Bible from page 1,459 (New Testament Title Page) to page 1,991 (Last verse of the Bible Revelation 22.21 “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.”)
3. Doing the math: 1,991 – 1,459 = 532 pages.
4. Study a minimum of about 10 pages per week – Having 50 weeks left of the year. This is covering all content that resides on those pages.
5. Highlight anything interesting
6. Write down what you want to remember.
7. Practically speaking I’ll… Study a minimum of 10 pages per week, highlighting anything interesting, writing down what I want to remember, and do a quick summary over each page or session.
8. Extras: I’ll use The Word of Promise audio Bible as I go to help retain what I’m reading, as well as Glo Digital Bible, and The Bible Knowledge Commentary (all of which I received for Christmas.)

I’ll probably end up tweeting and blogging about what I experience and my progress, but I’m not binding myself to that. Other less tangible goals are helping my wife with her new years resolution, (she hasn’t really told anyone about it yet), going to the gym consistently (so far 3x a week), and learning to live more loving, sacrificially, and generously.

Those desires may take shape into measurable goals, but i’m taking one step at a time to not overwhelm myself. Oh, and as a side note, I’ve started reading again and absolutely love it.

After the busiest and most fulfilling year of my life behind me (graduating with my bachelors, getting married, etc) I am now looking forward to a new season in my life. I feel that I’ll always be in transition if I’m following God closely, so I do my best to expect change as much as that is possible.

With that said, this week I put in my official resignation with my current employer Pursuant, where I’ve worked for the past 2 years. It is a hard thing to deal with in some ways, because now I have been at Pursuant longer than probably half of the company. But it was time for a change.

I want to express that Pursuant has been a great company, who saw potential in me early on, and has done a great job of providing for my wife and I. I look back on my time there blessed and thankful for the last 2 years.

Looking forward, my new job is with Ajilon, a technology staffing and services company. I’ll be able to gain a lot of valuable sales experience, public speaking experience, and networking experience.  So these are all a plus.

At the place in life that I am in, I always look forward to the man I want to be, and try to figure out how I get from here to there. I want to be….

A man known for his generosity, compassion, love for others, work ethic, and undeniable love of Christ.

How does this job change relate?

I want to be a polished speaker and advocate for anything that breaks the heart of God. Being able to speak on behalf of those who can’t speak for themselves.

I want to work hard and earn a lot of money…. so that I can be generous. Check out 2 Cor 8 & 9 for my motivation.

With this said, I believe that God can use this new job to bring me one step closer to the man I want to be.

Now all I have to do is actually do it.

The sermon that our pastor (Doug) taught on Sunday morning was the last in a 4 part series of the high views of God. It was about the high view of God’s work around the world.

What I expected was to hear something about the great commission, or referencing how Paul was all things to all people. But the talk referenced Luke 8.26-39 where Jesus heals the demon-possessed man.

Jesus stepped into this demon-possessed mans’ world (the graveyard) and heals him. When all other people either had tried and given up, or never even approached them man for being unclean, Jesus steps in and treats the man like a child of God.

How would things be different if we viewed everyone we interact as a child of God? How would this change how we treat people – to know that each person we come to contact with is a child of God and has a purpose?

How could this prayer and thought change how you treat the people that you don’t like, don’t agree with, or don’t approve of how they’re living their life?

I began to think of the homeless that I serve as “dearly loved children of God” and it began to break my heart.

Doug talked about driving in the car with his family, and they pull up to a stop in broad daylight to see a prostitute on the corner. His son was staring at the woman and asking “what is that?” and all Doug could think to do was to keep driving.

You could hear the remorse in Doug’s voice when followed up that story with “I should have told my son ‘that’s a daughter of God’”.

To think of what that woman goes through on a daily basis is horrible – That she lets men touch her and do gross things to her, only to be stared at and scoffed at, to have a life saturated in drugs, alcohol, guilt and shame.

Doug ended with the plea that we can’t be okay with that being the summation of her life – she does that every day till she dies alone somewhere never being told she’s a daughter of God and that she has immeasurable worth. People need to hear that.

I kept thinking about the song “Somebody’s Baby” by Jon Foreman while thinking about how this changes everything.

This changes everything. How?

If you can’t view the video, click here

After the video. . .

Link to podcast titled “Pastor Chan & Pastor Peter on Why We Should Care For The Poor” below:

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?i=54645223&id=203009159

Link to video about the book below:

http://www.theholeinourgospel.com/videos/

Let me know what you think and if you need help getting the book!