6) Take stock of your life every week

You know, when I read this piece of Tish Warren's in the New York Times last Sunday, I couldn't help thinking that her ten meaty New Year's resolutions, fished out from her friends, were worth due consideration. Today, six days in, I can't help thinking I'm a bit over the line--too much of a good thing.

With all due respect to Tim Keller, who has a shining light ministry in the Big Apple and may be the most respected preacher among the professionals in the denomination I'm a part of, the ideas he offers, taking stock, weekly, of how you're doing, is a bit over-the-line. In this case, whether or not Tim Keller does what Tim Keller preaches is a good question because he's not describing his own weekly moral workout, but instead quoting John Newton, an 18th century slave ship captain who suffered a wonderful moral turn-about on the high seas and righted his own ship toward a far more righteous eternal harbor.

Newton, Keller says in Warren's article (we're three deep in piety here) determined he needed to undergo a three-part examination every week. First (and second?), make two lists: "all the mercies, blessings and good things to be thankful for that had happened to him that week. And second, a list of sins — of omission and commission — he had committed against others and God."

Whoa. I can't help thinking that idea is almost demonically Calvinistic because humanly impossible. Seriously, both dang lists could go on forever, right? You're serious about this? 

But there's more: "“The second part was to reflect on the discrepancy between God’s goodness to him and his behavior. This helped him get a refreshed joy in God’s free, undeserved grace."

All of that seems to add up all right, but I don't mind coming clean: I don't know that I'm made of that kind of rigid self-inspection. Cotton Mather used to spend prayers days, all day long on his face on the floor. Impressive, eh? But it's not for me. 

Still, there's more: “The third part was a rededication of life, a refreshing and deepening of our commitment to God and God’s promises.”

Holy smokes. Every week--that kind of intense introspection? Keller's serious? Warren's serious? WOW. 

Others do it. St. Francis probably, any of a thousand monkish pietists. In my own way, I suppose I do something related simply by getting up every morning and trying to tally what's in my mind and heart and soul. But the kind of regimented, no-holes-barred self-evaluation Keller says Bunyan did strikes me as more than a little tedious and even risking some serious self-indulgence. Pardon me for saying I think there are better things to do than spend an hour a week--or whatever--combing through the iniquities of the week gone by.

So I'll pass on John Newton, and I hope that Tim Keller does too. Strikes me that we all have better things to do than ponder our inner moral selves. But then, Keller is a Calvinist, maybe the most popular one in the entire country. More power to him.

I'll pass. 

Luther's most famous line, "Love God and sin boldly," can be easily misunderstood. It's not an invitation to Las Vegas. Still, after reading Tish Warren on Tim Keller on John Newton, I'll channel Luther.