The issue Tripp deals with is common to all. Me especially. It isn’t that I don’t want to grow in my faith. I do. I want each day to learn something new. But, in all honesty, I don’t. I can’t say it isn’t for lack of trying. Each day I have a Quiet Time. It consists of the following:

• Reading the daily thought from Our Daily Bread to get started.
• Reading from Tripp’s book A Shelter in the Time of Storm. It will take me all year to read through since I take one devotion a week (it has 52) and reread it each day to soak it in.
• Currently reading from John Piper’s Christmas devotional, The Dawning of Indestructible Joy. I will read it through 2 more times (November and December). and will read it alongside O Come Let Us Adore Him by Tripp come December.
• Reading a passage from the NT. I am currently in Revelation 2 so it looks like I will finish my read through of the NT by the end of the year.
• New Morning Mercies. This is my second time through it and I make an effort to journal each day with my thoughts here. I also send it to a select group of men every day.

So I make a concerted effort to grow my faith. But honestly, sometimes that all feels like a drag. That’s right…a drag. That is when I realize my QT has become more rote than revelatory (in a good way). But I keep doing it because the clouds will break and a new day will dawn. I rely on the truth of the Scripture which says God’s Word will not return void. I figure that even if I am not showing phenomenal growth, I am growing. It will come to light some day. God’s grace and truth will transform and will continue to transform my life even when I don’t feel it.

“Father, you have promised your Word will not return void. In all my reading, help me not to get ‘tired’ but to be revived. Help me to see new truths. The old hymn said, ‘Open my eyes that I may see/Glimpses of truth Thou hast for me/Place in my hand the wonderful key/That shall unclasp and set me free/Silently now I wait for Thee/Ready my God Thy will to see/Open my eyes, illumine me,Spirit Divine.’ I can only say ‘Amen’ to those words.”