Verse of the Day for January 31

A month of beginnings ends here, and by the last day of January most people have already broken something they meant to keep. That is the ordinary arithmetic of resolutions and it is worth naming.

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

Note who the subject is. Paul is not confident in the Philippians. He is confident in the one who began the work, which takes the weight of the sentence off them entirely.

The month opened in Genesis with a beginning that was not ours. It closes with a completion that is not ours either. Between those two facts sits everything we have tried to build this month.

Which does not make the habits pointless. It makes them a response rather than a foundation. You are not holding this together. You are keeping step with someone who is.

If January went well, it was not your discipline that started it. If January went badly, your discipline is not what will finish it.

The good work has an author and a completion date, and neither of them is you.