365 days…

365 days. 365 precious opportunities to connect with people, to immerse ourselves in life here while preparing for life in Papua New Guinea. 365 days until my prayers, my joys, my worries and my world will look completely different. 365 amazing days each filled with 24 incredible hours of precious time and I feel stuck. I feel motionless, like I am standing on the edge of an immense life change but I cannot find a way to take the next step. I am paralyzed – overwhelmed by my inadequacies and inability to do anything meaningful but mostly my inability to do that which I know is best – my inability to run to the One who I know holds all the answers. To run from distractions. To run from the things that preoccupy but do not sustain, run from the worries that consume but do not change, run from the guilt that cripples but does not mobilize, run from my own strength and rest instead on Christ’s.

I want a fresh start, a new day – a day with possibilities, new hopes and no regrets. I want to run far from yesterdays failures and run towards tomorrows opportunities while revelling in todays joys. I want to run but I can’t even walk. I can’t even step. I am stuck.

I need His strength so deeply. I am keenly aware of my need for His Spirit. The things I desire so deeply – the cleansing fresh start I long for as I wake each morning comes only from Him. It is only when I rely on His Spirit that I can display the fruits I long for with all my heart – more love to prioritize my friends and family, more joy in the midst of difficulties, more peace in the face of seemingly all encompassing uncertainties, more patience in the overwhelming task of parenting, more kindness when earthly plans fail and frustration wells up and more self control – an altogether Godly ability to see things through God’s eyes and act in ways that are honouring to Him. 

I desire a fresh start so I can start moving, and moving in these Godly ways. I desire to seek God in each of the 365 days that lie ahead so that He, and not I might guide each step and so that He, and not I, can be glorified in the process.  

I read these words today by Charles Spurgeon and was deeply encouraged. He writes, ‘Come then, dear hearts, you who feel so dull and dead and so void of strength that you cannot do anything. Remember right confidently that the Holy Spirit can enable you to receive all the gifts of God. May He at this time bless the truth to you, and you will feel the soft, sweet influence of repentance melting you to tears on account of sin. You will feel something telling you that in Christ there is just what you want, and you will feel a resolve forming in your heart, ‘ I will have it if it may be had.”

I want Christ. I want to turn from past sins which threaten to steal the joy of the 365 opportunities that lie ahead- sins of apathy, sins of busyness, sins of self-sufficiency and control. I claim forgiveness and am freed to move forward knowing that I will find myself in this place many more times in the coming year but trusting that, each time, God’s grace will meet me there. 

Claiming a forgiveness that can extinguish an otherwise immobilizing guilt, I pray today for the ability to take one step forward – the ability to make choices today not based on the shame of past mistakes, not clouded by past regrets but so purely based on freedom and forgiveness that there is nothing left to inhibit forward progress. 

I pray today that day 365 will be marked by God’s grace and that, rather than becoming overwhelmed and paralyzed by the tasks ahead, that I would be empowered by God’s Spirit to depend upon God’s everlasting love, unending power and unchanging grace for every day from now until we leave and every day in our new home.

Lord God, take my hand and move me forward. Be God over my worrying mind, God of my sensitive heart, God of my idle hands and slow feet. Transform me and make me effective and, as I stand on the edge of this immense life change, may I be reminded that you are right beside me, behind me and that, you have gone before me.

May I be reminded that you have called our family to Papua New Guinea and that you will enable us to arrive there safely in your time. May I be reminded that my inadequacies will not frustrate your plans but can be used to greatly illuminate your sufficiency. May I rejoice, even, in my complete inability to step forward, for it is in this realization of my weakness that I have been drawn so powerfully to your strength. 

I need not do this on my own. You are power, grace, love and unending strength. I need not have all the answers or a perfectly laid out plan. I need only have a willing and repentant heart, faith in your forgiveness and the courage to depend upon you wholly. 

And so I move ahead slowly, arms wide open in the freedom that comes from faith in a powerful God, firmly grasping your hand, clinging to your words and trusting that the way will be made clear one day, one step at a time. 

365 days and each one of them already ordained by you. Here it goes…