the gift he left

You are just all behind and it's my fault!  I finally got back at it yesterday and now I can catch you up, too!

The new semester/year at Emmaus technically started today!  Lots of new students registered today, current students floated through to finalize class lists and to make payments, and a new group of visiting professors starts to arrive tomorrow (starting with one of the girls all time favs, Ms. Pam!), the Lains and Jerry Saturday and Joyce, Sunday.

Our new Masters in Education degree starts on Monday as well, and we're really excited to be offering this to lots of area teachers, principals and administrators...There is a major need for more education in education and we've got some great students signed up.

It's just a joy to have the campus filling up again...reminding me just how truly God-sent our staff and students are.  Everyone is TIRED...Christmas break is no break if you're a full-time pastor, as you know, and Independence Day (January 1st) is also a really big church event time...tired but Good.  Thankful for the Holy Spirit in so many, just radiating, despite.  Despite illness, despite hardship, despite persecution, despite fatigue, despite.

The girls and I started homeschooling again Wednesday, reminding me just how much I love and cherish that sweet (well, mostly sweet...also sometimes stubborn :) time with them each.  Sofie's school, which is where Lily will also be going, is almost finished with their major construction project of a new building, so they don't start until next Monday...thankful for more time to breath!

Nora is finally 90%, Sofie is on day three of the 102 fever virus and miserably freezing and then burning up...she didn't do much today but sit on the couch.  Matt is also day three of the same seeming virus...which may also be turning into bronchitis or some weird virus or something-I-don't-know.  Incredibly thankful for a doctor who takes calls during choir practice and a neighbor who takes vitals in bed...he'll be heading to the clinic for a series of tests first thing in the morning.

I've been reading through the Word from it's start the last month or so, and was working through Leviticus and John on the plane on our way home Monday (was that just MONDAY?).  Having just come through Christmas, the gift I've been focusing on lately has been Jesus...God's great love in sending Him, God incarnate, the miracle we all desperately needed.

But on the plane I was starting to think more about New Years (I told you I was behind)...about my prayer, about my hopes, about His plans.  As I was wrapping up John, Jesus was just pouring it all out there to the disciples...encouraging them, instructing them, answering their questions, admonishing them, urging them.  What a rich rich text.

And in Chapter 14, he talks instead not about being the gift, but about leaving them one.  "I am leaving you with a gift--peace of mind and heart.  And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot, so do not be troubled or afraid."

As soon as I read it, I thought: DO I have that gift?  Does it LOOK like I do?  Like, all the time?

Because he left it for us, friends, peace of mind and heart.  And we can't get it anywhere else, and it must manifest through us not being panicked, desperate, nasty, overwhelmed or afraid people.

He did not ascend leaving us the promise of good health.  This has not been good health season, and we are nowhere near out of the woods yet and my great temptation has been to allow pity, to allow frustration, to allow discouragement and disappointment and bitterness.  He did not ascend leaving us the promise of good fortune or good finance or all good relationships or good feelings.

This morning Lily and I were memorizing Romans 8:38, about God always being at work for our good.  I asked Lily if it alway seems like God is working for her good,  and of course she admitted not. But if God's Word said it, then we trust it.  So we talked about how in times that His word doesn't seem to be true for our lives, we must trust that it IS, and trust that it is OUR perspective, our understanding, our feeling that is erroneous.

She reminded me of the incredibly dumb chicken in the movie Moana, constantly trying to eat things, do things and go places that would lead to his obvious BAD, and of Moana, in her greater wisdom, who was always stopping him from doing and having and going where he REALLY wanted.

"It seemed awful to Hei-Hei, but Moana knew what was best," she pointed out, and I can't think of a better analogy than that.  I surely do feel like an incredibly dumb chicken pretty often, and yet still sure that I know what's best.

So this season my focus is not what I'd like to see or what I'd like to have or what I'd like to change or even who I'd like to be.  It's going to be on the gifts that He has GIVEN us as believers, and accepting them, living them, sharing them.  Gifts like truly divine peace of mind, peace of heart...Gifts like truly divine HOPE...Gifts like truly divine grace.

Whatever you're resolving this year, remember that He has offered us peace of mind and heart, as we are, already...and if that sounds awfully far away, I know He's ready and anxious to offer it to us again (and again and again).

Praise the Lord.