Partners

We should think about each other to see how we can encourage each other to show love and do good works. We must not quit meeting together, as some are doing. No, we need to keep on encouraging each other.  Hebrews 10:24-25

Over the past weeks, we have moved our family to a new territory.  While it has not been easy to transition to 'all things new', it has been good.  I hate to say, but I was surprised by how smoothly the process has gone.  I shouldn't have been surprised.  I should have known He would come through for us.  I'm supposed to have more faith, right?!  But I didn't.  I was in the boat, storm raging, and a big scaredy-cat.  Funny how things seem much more frightening (waves seem bigger) than they truly are at times...

Well, truth be told, I am downright surprised that it has gone so well (oh me of little faith!).  The Lord has provided so faithfully and graciously, as is His nature.  He has met us at every step - the grief of leaving "home", the loneliness of living in a new and strange place, the apprehension of engaging with all of the "new"…   God has been so faithfully present through the whole experience that I prefer to think it was nothing short of miraculous.

The thing I love most about this miracle is how God chose to partner with people on our behalf.  We have been held together, encouraged and loved so well through our transition.  Family and friends have prayed fervently for us and encouraged us to continue walking in faith, believing and anticipating that the Lord has something new and delightful for us here.  Let's face it, there are moments in the midst of change or troubles that you need someone to remind you of the goodness of God and His plans for us.  Moments when you accidentally shift your focus off Him and onto the waves.  The Lord was so kind to knit our hearts together with these friends over the years.  I will forever be grateful to them for loving us so well.   There is nothing like knowing that there are people out there that know your heart and love you.  And to think we have a God that knows us and loves us even more so!

Coming from a community that loved us so well has set my heart upon deliberately seeking the same here.  We have seen the intrinsic value of living in community and how it shaped us.  We would not be who we are today without those relationships.  They walked beside us amidst loss, trials, joyful times…the good, the bad and the ugly.  You just cannot put a price on that.

As we engage in this place we now call home, I find the Lord ushering us into new relationships.  We have been blessed by many on this side of the move already - people that have invited us to participate in their communities and reached out to welcome us.  I am aware of an intentionality in my own heart to pursue relationship and to actively engage in community.  There was a time when I wouldn't have taken the risk, or at least would have taken longer to reach out.  In years past, I might have shrouded my heart in layers of pretense even, out of a fear I might not be accepted.  Here in this new place, though, I feel the Lord calling me to reach outward with haste and confidence and with a raw honesty.  

We have to pursue this connection with others.  And not just for ourselves but for others, too.  It's reciprocal.  I have to remember that God is in me and wants to use me, as He does you.  He has things to say and might just choose to use my mouth to say it.  He has people to comfort, and my arms just might be the ones He reaches out with.  He has love to give and I might become the vessel He uses to embrace.  It's a humbling thought.  That the Creator chooses the created to accomplish His purposes.  He lives within us to reveal Himself throughout the earth.  That every soul would see that He is good and He is God… We just need to make ourselves available to Him and be willing to serve!

God, You are a triune Being.  You are in perfect relationship as Father, Son and Spirit.  You model for us what community looks like.   Lord Jesus, You revealed to us the remarkable communion of God and man, making a way for us to be restored to right relationship with our Holy God.  We thank you for Your sacrifice.  We thank You for being our Friend and teaching us how to love.  Empower us to engage in our families, our churches, our neighborhoods, and schools as people who love well and encourage one another.  Reveal Your heart through us and use us to display Your glory.  It is in You we live and move and have our being...   

And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands and territories. This was so that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grasp for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.  For in Him we live and move and exist [that is, in Him we actually have our being], as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ Acts 17:26-28