I hardly know where to begin, so I guess it’s a good idea to start with the Word. This chunk of Scripture was preached from our pulpit yesterday, and it heartily rings true in my life as I anticipate this next year:

“Surely my soul remembers and is bowed down within me. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. The LORD’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. ‘The LORD is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘Therefore I have hope in Him.’ The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him. It is good that he waits silently For the salvation of the LORD. It is good for a man that he should bear The yoke in his youth.” ~Lamentations 3:20-27 – NAS, The Message

2007 is going to kick my butt, I’m fairly certain. This “thing” we’re about to do, what I’ve been preparing for actively for 6.5 years, passively for 13, is going to happen this year. This going. If all goes well with our support raising, we should be overseas in two months. I’m excited, I’m nervous, I’m humbled, and yet I’m confident. Confident because I know this is the portion that the Father has for this little family – and if He is leading, there is no need to worry. Simple as that.

Yet I find myself shaking in my boots a little, because I know the battle that’s ahead, and I also know my flesh – those little weaknesses that creep up at just the wrong time. I can look back at 2006 and say fairly confidently that I learned more about my weaknesses than I ever have in my adult life. And really, the only excuse for them is that while I am a new creation, I am still waging war in this earth suit I’ve got. As Paul says, “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members” (Romans 7:22-23). We all deal with it, and we’ll all continue to deal with it here on earth. I’m in good company here.

ALL of our teammates that arrived on the field this year have repeatedly echoed the same thing – the biggest challenge they face daily, by far, is the spiritual battle. Nothing comes close. Not dealing with having no clothes dryer, not learning the language, not fishbowl living due to the stripping of privacy we westerners know and love. The daily spiritual battle. All of us are living in enemy territory, that’s for sure, but we are deliberately choosing to plant ourselves in a land wherein the enemy has had a death grip for centuries. He has clouded the light not just with darkness, but with blackness. And he’s quite ticked when his enemy’s children move in to squelch that (and that’s putting it very mildly). I don’t take lightly my teammates’ words… I’d be prideful and silly to think the spiritual battle won’t be a struggle for us.

I’m encouraged by these words:

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…” ~2 Corinthians 4:7-9

“But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, they will come about the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” ~1 Corinthians 15:54-58

This year’s resolution? To spend 365 days in the Word. It’s the only way I’ll survive 2007.

posted: 07 January 1
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