It is a lovely notebook. That is not incidental, that is most of the problem.
Hardback, dark green, the sort of paper that makes your handwriting look better than it is. Her sister gave it to her last September with a card that said something kind and slightly funny, and the idea was that she would write down one thing a day that she was thankful for.
Her sister did not mean anything by it. Her sister does this and it helps her, and she was passing on a good thing.
There is one entry.
First page, at the top, in careful writing because it was the first page of a good notebook: the eighth of September, and something about the evening light on the wall in the front room.
Nothing since. Eleven months.
And here is the thing that has happened, and it is not about the notebook.
The blankness has become an item.
It sits on the shelf and she sees it, and it has stopped being an unfilled notebook and started being a piece of evidence about the kind of person she is: not thankful enough, not attentive enough, not the sort who can manage even one line a day, which is nothing, which anybody could do.
She has thought several times about throwing it out and has not, and she is not sure whether that is hope or something worse.
And you know that exactly, because there is a good thing somebody gave you that has turned into an accusation on a shelf.
A blank page is not evidence
Let us settle what governs this whole page. Nothing on it is being asked of you, there is no appeal at the bottom, and nobody here is going to fill anything in for you.
You are looking at an invitation, and the One being tested inside it is God. Follow the verb in the famous sentence and it lands on Him. He is under examination. He is the one who offered to be found out. It is written, put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts (Malachi 3:10), and the Holy Spirit is what turns a famous sentence into an invitation addressed to you.
Here it is, in its own room:
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.Malachi 3:10
Said to a nation, in one decade, about one building, where the store room had emptied and the families who worked there had gone home hungry. It is a sentence about people eating, and it was never a lever.
And here is what belongs to this page.
God had already been faithful to those people for centuries before He ever invited them to test Him, and He was already faithful to you across all eleven of those blank months. That invitation comes at the end of a very long book, spoken to people whose whole story is a record of what He had already done. The test was never the start of His faithfulness. It was an invitation to notice. It is the Holy Spirit, not this page, who takes that and puts it beside a dark green notebook on a shelf.
Now the blankness, and it needs the truth said carefully.
It is not evidence. Nobody here is going to tell you that a mostly empty notebook is a report on your character, and if anybody has ever suggested that a person who cannot keep this up is not thankful, they were wrong and it was unkind.
Here is what actually happened, and it is very ordinary. You were given a daily thing. Daily things have a property nobody mentions when they hand them over: they convert a good idea into a record of your failures within about a fortnight. The eighth of September was real. Everything after that is not eleven months of ingratitude, it is a form that did not fit you, and forms are supposed to fit people rather than the other way round. The Holy Spirit is the One who makes that true in a person rather than merely accurate on a page.
Forgetting is the ordinary condition of a person, and God has never once been surprised by it. It is written, bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits (Psalm 103:2). Note that it is a person speaking to himself out loud, because he could not rely on himself, and note that he did not undertake to do it every day at the same time. It is written, I will remember the deeds of the Lord (Psalm 77:11), which is one decision made once on one bad night.
And here is the passage for a woman with a shelf and a green notebook.
He asked them. When I sent you out with no purse, He said, did you lack anything? And they said, nothing (Luke 22:35).
They had no notebook. There was no daily discipline behind that answer. There was a question, once, and a group of people going back over something, and the answer had been true the whole time whether or not anybody had written it down.
You are not being asked to keep something up, you are being asked to go and look once, and those are two completely different things. It is written that you shall remember the whole way the Lord your God has led you (Deuteronomy 8:2), and that is a walk back over a distance rather than an entry made every evening. His Spirit is the one who makes that a single afternoon rather than a new eleven months.
Now the guardrails, and they are why this page will not give you a better system.
Nobody here is going to suggest what to write. Three of somebody else's items in your handwriting would be worse than the blank.
And nobody is going to turn what you find into a pattern. It will not predict your year, it is not a method, and it does not add up to anything except three things that happened. That is enough, and three is the whole ask, and there is no day two.
God proved Himself to you long before anybody gave you a pen, and the finding out is looking rather than keeping up. It is written that He is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8), so what you find will not be a fluke in a bad year. It is the same Person who was in the light on the wall on the eighth of September.
So take it off the shelf, and do not open it at page two.
Eleven blank pages are not evidence about you. They are a form that did not fit, and your sister gave you a kind thing and the kindness was real and the form was somebody else's, and God has been faithful to you across all eleven months whether or not one line went in.
He proved Himself long before anybody handed you a notebook. The notebook was never the start of it. It is an invitation to look at something that has already been happening.
You were carried through all eleven of those months, and the blankness of a page has never once been a report on His care. It is written that His mercies are new every morning and great is His faithfulness (Lamentations 3:23), and new every morning means the eleven months were not empty of Him even where the notebook was empty of writing. His Spirit is what turns that from a line on a wall into something that stands in a room with a window seat in it.
Nothing is required of you for that to be true, and nothing on this page will do the looking for you.
Come and see. He has nothing behind His back.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud with the paper in front of you. You have the right to speak them because you are in Christ and Christ is in you, and that standing was given to you and never earned by keeping anything up, which is exactly the thing this verse has been used to obscure. Scripture is the ground under every line and the Holy Spirit is what makes them live in a person. Speak first to the blank pages, then to the thing you have quietly concluded about the kind of person you are, and then turn and speak to Him. Whatever He does after you say them is His, and it is not a scoreboard.
- Eleven blank pages, you are not evidence about me. God had been faithful for centuries before He ever invited anybody to test Him, and He was here through every one of the months I did not write down.
- Verdict that a woman who cannot manage one line a day is a woman who is not thankful, you are coming off that shelf. It is written that a person said to their own soul, forget not all His benefits, and nowhere did they promise to do it daily at the same hour.
- Jesus, You asked them straight out whether they had lacked anything, and there was no notebook behind that answer at all. I look once, in Your name, on one piece of paper this afternoon, because You proved Yourself long before anybody gave me a pen, and eight bars was never eight bars of failing.
Malachi 3:10
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
