Aware

Not a lot of time for the internet lately. I’ve been very busy and away at a conference and I share a computer with about 800 other people. So what’s been going on...

My family is doing well. Little Stella is still really little...she grows long more than fat but that’s ok. She’s cute and a little crabby cause she’s trying to figure out the whole bowel thing. I don’t know why that’s such a problem for babies. Just let it out! It’s so easy for the rest of us. It’s a little too easy for some of us...and that's it...the precise moment I went too far. : )

My Father, Sister and Nephew came for a visit about 2 weeks ago. It was really good to have them here but bittersweet as my Dad has had a few strokes in the last couple years and they have really affected his behavior. He is inside of himself, quiet, not a lot of light in his eyes. He actually had a small one right before they came and went into the hospital as soon as they got home from his visit. He was released yesterday and is responding well to rehab. Please pray for him.

As soon as they left, Aaron, Jimmy and I were off to a great Youth With A Mission Conference in Chico, CA with all the leaders from the Southwest U.S. We were there for 3 days and had a blast with great teaching, refreshing praise times, good connections with new friends in the mission and restored vision for our work here in Modesto. We hiked a lot too as the YWAM center in Chico is way back in a beautiful canyon (no cell phones or internet for us either). Our first hike, Jimmy was our guide and took us into the wilderness where there was no trail...up a mountainside. We found deer skeletons, Aaron got poison oak (again) and my ankle is recovering nicely.

So I’m facing March a little more aware. Aware that I am in a war that’s fought everyday. God’s enemy would love me to think that it’s not that big a deal. That life is just life and it goes on and if we can make some kind of sense of it that’s good but if not we just exist and that’s all. I can sleepily walk through my days, watch a whole month go by and drowsily wonder where the time went between stuff I had to do to survive. But that mind set is a trap.

The matrix is real and we have to fight everyday to not believe the lies that seem so true right in front of our eyes. Today does matter. There are no “throw away, cut your losses” days. We are not meant to just make it. We are meant to pass from glory to glory. To advance on the darkness that would try and swallow the world around us whole. To brazenly walk into the darkness holding the light in front of us and driving it back.

God calls me today to be real in my relationships, passionate in prayer, diligent in study, determined in discipline, faithful in the small things, watchful for opportunity, obedient in response, harsh in dealing with my own rebellion, full of grace for others, reaching out with good works, strong in the Lord and in the power of HIS might, my mouth full of blessing, my heart full of love, my flesh dead and my spirit alive. He’s given us everything, everything, EVERYTHING we need for life and godliness says the scripture and he’s looking for people that are just crazy enough to believe it.

So let’s stick our feet out. Let’s tell the darkness that we will not move. Let’s lock arms with brothers and sisters, hold the line and start walking forward...forward to share the good news with a neighbor, forward to lend food, kind words and our ear to the poor, forward to support and encourage missionaries around the world, forward to pick a struggling brother or sister up, forward to remembering the elderly and weak, forward to point the way for an aimless young person and forward in awareness for every opportunity God sends our way today.