Seasons

Andre and I at the train station in Simferopal... after a very long train ride

It is August 31. I have just returned from the Black Sea. When I stepped off the train and on to the platform I was greeted by a bunch of youth that were waiting to see us. Hugs and jumping quickly ensued. They helped us trek our luggage back to the flat, and we discussed life and the future. You see, tomorrow is September 1. Everybody of school age returns to classes tomorrow. And the big question is how do I do things better than last year. How do I avoid the mistakes of before. How do I allow God into my everyday. It truly blesses me to know that not only am I entrusted with these questions, but that their lives have been influenced to the measure that they genuinely want to know the answer. Everyday I come to the conclusion: my work here is far from done. So as I enter the new fall ministry season tomorrow I leave you with these words:

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained.” ~Philippians 3:7-16

Words for any season!