Daniel Plan Journal - 40 Days To A Healthier Life Order Printed Copy

Author: Rick Warren
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About the Book

The "Daniel Plan Journal: 40 Days to a Healthier Life" by Rick Warren provides a practical guide for individuals looking to improve their physical, mental, and spiritual health. The journal includes daily prompts, reflections, and exercises to help readers set goals, track progress, and make sustainable lifestyle changes. Drawing inspiration from the biblical principles of the Daniel Plan, this book offers a holistic approach to health and wellness.

Joni Eareckson Tada

Joni Eareckson Tada is a remarkable woman. Injured in a diving accident at the age of 17, Joni has had to endure more physical suffering than most of us ever will. Though she suffered a deep depression and lost the will to live in the aftermath of her accident, she gradually came back to a deeper relationship with God. Because of her early struggles, she has become strong in her faith and is a testimony to the world of how when we are weak, God is strong. Her story is not one of bitterness and despair, as we might imagine it to be, but one of love and victory. Joni Eareckson Tada was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1950 to John and Lindy Eareckson. She was the youngest of four sisters, Linda, Jay, and Kathy. Her name is pronounced “Johnny”, being he named after her father. Joni inherited her father’s athletic and creative abilities, giving father and daughter a special bond. Her childhood was an extremely happy one. She grew into a young adult surrounded by love, happiness, and security in her parent’s home. The Eareckson family shared a great love for the outdoors, which promoted family togetherness. They shared in various outdoor activities such as camping trips, horseback riding, hiking, tennis, and swimming. In 1967, after graduating from high school, Joni had her fateful accident. It was a hot July day and she was to meet her sister Kathy and some friends at the beach on Chesapeake Bay to swim. When she arrived, she dove in quickly, and immediately knew something was wrong. Though she felt no real pain, a tightness seemed to encompass her. Her first thought was that she was caught in a fishing net and she tried to break free and get to the surface. Panic seized her as she realized she couldn’t move and she was lying face down on the bottom of the bay. She realized she was running out of air and resigned herself to the fact that she was going to drown. Her sister, Kathy, called for her. She ran to Joni and pulled her up. To Kathy’s surprise, Joni could not support herself and tumbled back into the water. Kathy pulled her out and Joni gasped for air. Joni was puzzled as to why her arms were still tied to her chest. Then to her dismay, Joni realized they were not tied, but were draped lifelessly across her sister’s back. Kathy yelled for someone to call an ambulance and Joni was rushed to the hospital. Joni’s life was changed forever that July day in 1967. She had broken her neck – a fracture between the fourth and fifth cervical levels. She was now a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the shoulders down. While her friends were busy sending out graduation announcements and preparing to go to college in the fall, Joni was fighting for her very life and having to accept the fact that she would have to live out the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Joni’s rehabilitation was not easy. As you might imagine she was angry and she raged against her fate. She struggled with depression and often times she wanted to end her life. She could not understand how God could let this happen to her. Before the accident she had felt that she wasn’t living the life she should be so she had prayed that God would change her life – that he’d turn it around. After months of staring at the ceiling and wallowing in her depression, Joni began to wonder if this was God’s answer to her prayer. This realization that God was working in her life was the beginning of Joni’s journey to wholeness as a disabled person. She participated in various rehabilitation programs that taught her how to live with her disabilities and she immersed herself in God’s Word to become spiritually strong. Joni’s life has been a full one. She has learned early on to compensate for her handicaps. Being naturally creative, she learned to draw and paint holding her utensils with her teeth. She began selling her artwork and the endeavor was a great success. There was a real demand for her work. She kept herself very busy with her artwork and gained for herself a degree of independence. She was also able to share Christ’s love in her drawings. She always signed her paintings “PTL” which stood for “Praise the Lord”. Joni has also become a sought after conference speaker, author, and actress, portraying herself in the World Wide Pictures production of “Joni”, the life story of Joni Eareckson in 1978. She has written several books including “Holiness in Hidden Places”, “Joni”, which was her autobiography, and many children’s titles. But her most satisfying and far-reaching work is her advocacy on behalf of the disabled. In 1979, Joni moved to California to begin a ministry to the disabled community around the globe. She called it Joni and Friends Ministries (JAF Ministries), fulfilling the mandate of Jesus in Luke 14:13,23 to meet the needs of the poor, crippled, and lame. Joni understood first-hand the loneliness and alienation many handicapped people faced and their need for friendship and salvation. The ministry was soon immersed with calls for both physical and spiritual help for the disabled. JAF Ministries thus uncovered the vast hidden needs of the disabled community and began to train the local church for effective outreach to the disabled, an often overlooked mission field. JAF Ministries today includes local offices in such major cities as Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Phoenix, and SanFrancisco. The goal of the ministry is to have ten such offices in metropolitan areas by the year 2001. Through JAF Ministries, Joni tapes a five-minute radio program called “Joni and Friends”, heard daily all over the world. She has heart for people who, like herself, must live with disabilities. Her role as an advocate for the disabled has led to a presidential appointment to the National Council on Disability for over three years. Joni also serves on the board of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization as a senior associate for evangelism among disabled persons. Joni has also begun Wheels for the World, a ministry which involves restoring wheelchairs and distributing them in developing nations. Joni has won many awards and commendations throughout her life. In 1993 she was named Churchwoman of the Year by the Religious Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Evangelicals named her “Layperson of the Year”, making her the first woman ever to receive that honor. Also among the numerous awards she has received are the American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award, The Courage Award of the Courage Rehabilitation Center, the Award of Excellence from the Patricia Neal Rehabilitation Center, the Victory Award from the National Rehabilitation Hospital, and the Golden Word Award from the International Bible Society. In 1982, Joni married Ken Tada. Today, eighteen years later, the marriage is strong and committed and they are still growing together in Christ. Ken and Joni travel together with JAF Ministries speaking at family retreats about the day to day experiences of living with disabilities. At the helm of JAF Ministries, Ken and Joni strive to demonstrate in tangible ways that God has not abandoned those with disabilities. And they speak from experience.

The Very First Prayer

From the opening chapters of the Bible, God makes it clear that humanity was created to enjoy life with God, and God in life — to experience the radiance of his presence and listen to him speak “close up.” Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden, which God himself has provided for this very purpose. And they are charged to turn the whole of creation into a place where God can be known and enjoyed (see Genesis 1:28 and 2:15–16). Relating to God, for them, was natural and unhindered. After the events of Genesis 3, of course, everything gets so much harder. “From the opening chapters of the Bible, God makes it clear that humanity was created to enjoy life with God.” God’s grand plan for his people and his world remains the same, but suddenly the way to God is littered with obstacles, as the ease of relating to God is replaced with struggle. In fact, it’s not altogether clear how our first parents are supposed to relate to God as they leave the now inaccessible garden behind (Genesis 3:24). The task they were commissioned to do in Genesis 1:28 remains, but it now will be tackled against the grain of a broken creation and without the immediate presence of the Creator. Which brings us to Genesis 4. First Recorded Prayer After the exclusion of the original couple from Eden, the narrative immediately jumps to the birth of Cain and then Abel. The intriguing note of Genesis 3:15 has set us up to expect an individual who is able to undo the recently created chaos of sin. Both brothers are pictured bringing offerings to God (the awareness of our obligation to the one who made us remains intact), but the violent events which follow do little beyond showing that the hope of humanity must be found elsewhere — and yet, remarkably, God has continued to speak to his people. Cain’s evil quickly spirals further out of control, as he settles down in a city (Genesis 4:17), rather than continuing to “fill the earth and subdue it,” and then fathers a dynasty of self-reliant men, culminating in the brutality of Lamech, who boasts to his wives that if anyone messes with him, he will exact disproportionate revenge (Genesis 4:24). At this point in the tragic narrative, we find these words: And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord. (Genesis 4:25–26) Initially, Genesis 4:25 raises our hopes. Cain and Abel are not to be the sole heirs of Adam — there is another son, Seth. Eve’s own words, highlighting that he is another “offspring” (same word in Genesis 3:15), lead us to expect more detail, and hopefully a bright counterpoint to the darkness of Cain and his line. However, we get no details whatsoever about Seth. He is born, and then his sole contribution to the unfolding plan of God is to sire a son, Enosh. Like his father, Enosh makes no contribution to the narrative beyond providing a descendant. All this makes it doubly puzzling when the birth of Enosh leads people to begin calling on the name of the Lord, apparently for the first time. Why Pray Now? The phrase “at that time” in the first five books of the Bible tends to introduce significant incidents (for example, Genesis 12:6; 38:1; Deuteronomy 1:9). In this case, the striking nature of the action (calling on the name of the Lord) is a further signal that something important is going on. But it is puzzling — what could possibly have occasioned this “new start” in humanity’s relationship with God? Seth is born, but does nothing else. Now Enosh is born, and similarly, there appears to be nothing remarkable about his birth. So what are we to make of this? What prompted them to seek God in this way now? It’s theoretically possible that this is simply a chronological note. Given the fact, however, that not one word is wasted in the opening chapters of the Bible, and every phrase seems loaded with significance for the unfolding narrative, this seems highly unlikely. Rather, it seems that starting to “call on the name of the Lord” is the right response to the fact that Cain and Abel, Seth and Enosh have all shown up, but there is, as yet, no sign of the promised Serpent-Crusher of Genesis 3:15. The waiting — and the appealing to God to act — has begun. We Ask for What He Promised This is the first address to God after the fall — and it is a cry to God to act by fulfilling his promises. In the Institutes, John Calvin says, “Just as faith is born from the gospel, so through it our hearts are trained to call upon God’s name” (III XX.21). I think that’s what’s going on here in Genesis 4. The announcement of Genesis 3:15 has brought gospel hope to life, which in turn leads God’s people to ask God to act. The gospel gives birth to gospel-shaped prayer. “Prayer is a means of communion with God, but far more often it is simply asking God to do what he has promised to do.” As we look at prayers throughout the Bible, it becomes increasingly apparent that they are dominated by this single concern: to see God act to fulfill his promises as he advances his plan of redemption in our world. That’s not to say, of course, that our relationship with God can be reduced to this one thing. There are lots of activities that we are invited or commanded to engage in as part of our relationship with God (like praise, or repentance, or intercession, or lament, or thanks). When it comes to prayer, however, the Bible seems to have a much narrower focus than we would normally allow. Prayer is a means of communion with God, but far more often it is simply asking God to do what he has promised to do. Until Prayer Is Unnecessary This simple observation, which flows naturally from Genesis 4:25–26, does cut through much of the guilt and confusion we often feel about prayer. Prayer begins with asking God to do his gospel work. This is presumably why Jesus can encourage us to pray unhypocritical, to-the-point kingdom prayers (Matthew 5:5–14). Prayer isn’t primarily communing with God, let alone twisting his arm, but asking God to do what he is already committed to doing (see Luke 11:5–13). It is easy to miss the significance of Genesis 4:25–26, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a beautifully gospel-shaped clue to how people like you and me are to relate to the God who loves us this side of the fall. We are to pray — asking God to do what he has promised — until that day when prayer is no longer needed, because all things have already been made new and all his promises have been brought to perfect fruition. But until then? We keep praying like people of the day of Seth and Enosh, asking God to act for our good and his glory. Article by Gary Millar