A Letter....

So I'm sitting here at my desk enjoying being busy. After being in the desert of unemployment for 4 1/2 months, it is nice to have been going non-stop the last 3 weeks.

I've been reading in 2 Corinthians this week....I love that letter. In chapter 3 Paul finds himself being asked to prove that he is who he says he is by some of the people in the church of Corinth.....the very people with whom he had served side by side. These people knew Paul...his strengths; his weaknesses; his victories and his losses, yet they wanted proof that he was who he said he was.

His reply is greatness......."your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it-not with ink, but with God's living spirit; not chiseled in stone, but carved into human lives."

I sat and talked with a friend yesterday. One of those good, solid God talks. We've both had to deal with anger and bitterness this year and got a chance yesterday to reflect on God's guidance through those deserts. It was AWESOME!

God has been redeeming me and showing me what it looks like to "get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger......"(Eph.4:31). He has been working incredibly in the lives of my family. He has given us a new season of ministry in a new church home and it is exciting! Bitterness and anger would do nothing but hinder that ministry and give Satan a stronghold from which to base his covert rebellions in my soul.

Kelly and I have had so many opportunities to talk about these things in the last few months. She has been an incredible support and God ministers to me through her daily. The lessons we have learned on letting God be God, and not take things into our own hands have been unbelievably valuable. It's hard sometimes and we have carried each other through one of the driest, most brutal deserts we have experienced in our 20 years of marriage. God is good and we are so grateful for his patience and faithfullness.

I know my friend will read this and so I say thank you. Thank you for being a letter to the world. In that same passage in 2 Corinthians Paul mentions being a publisher of those letters. I am so thankful that I have had the chance to be publisher and to have people publish my letter.

Think about what we write in that letter on a daily basis. Think about the message we are publishing in others and in ourselves. Edit.......proofread......and correct when necessary.

To my friend....thank you. Your friendship is priceless and means so much to my family. I can't wait to see all of the things God is going to do through you.

Kel....you're unbelievable! I am so thankful that God put us together to do life. I love you.

I'm out.....