Happy New Year

Shalom, "peace," is one of the richest words in the Bible.  You can no more define it by looking up its meaning in the dictionary than you can define a person by his or her social security number.  It gathers all aspects of wholeness that result from God's will being completed in us.  It is the work of God that, when complete, releases streams of living water in us and pulsates with eternal life.  Every time Jesus healed, forgave or called someone, we have a demonstration of shalom. 

From A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

by Eugene H. Peterson

 (Julia and Bradley headed to a "play-date" with some friends down the road from our house)

I love this small word from Peterson.  It sums up our entire year of 2015.  We look back and see Him healing, forgiving, and calling our entire family.  Then we see 2016 being a complete demonstration of the Lord's shalom poured out over us.  Now, we are experiencing 2017 as the releasing of streams of living water in us that pulsates with eternal life.  Praise be to God and to God the Glory!  Wow! Oh, so good.  

Oh, so good, but not quite easy.  How can that be?  I wish all of you were walking this path with us, then you would see the paradox as we do.  Uganda is hard.  Its rough and raw.  Its striving and surviving.  Not like the striving we are used to from the US, but striving just to live, to just breathe another breath.  New Years Eve here is taken very seriously.  People gather together at football pitches, stadiums, churches and many other public venues to pray and give thanks.  They spend the entire 24 hours or more just thanking God above for allowing them to live one more year.  Its a celebration of life, actually being alive!  It seems New Years in the US is primarily focused on where you are, what you are doing, who you're with, what you have on, who you will kiss, and what to drink -then making sure that you have a designated driver!  Pretty different reality.  

So I'm thankful to God for allowing us this new life, or new perspective on life.  Its ugly and the stories from every Ugandan we meet is full of pain, loss, poverty, disease, death, hunger, and grief.  Yet the beauty of it all seems to be their reliance on the Lord for their very next meal.  Its good, oh so good!  Just being in the presence of such reliance is teaching me the same.  He first causes me to realize my foolishness of believing I had such control over my next meal, breath, or heartbeat.  Then he wakes me up to my pride preventing me from my Saviors presence.  This perspective is on the reality of His Kingdom verses my egocentric short-sighted nature.  Its full, lasting, and its good.  What an honor it is to be here and walk with these precious people through their pain.  But in all honesty, they walk with me through mine, as the Lord pulls me out of myself and into His grace.  Thank you Lord.  You are glorious!

In this New Year, let us all be more like Him, beg for His revealing, plead for His guidance and walk in His grace.  And may our circumstances cause us to rely completely and totally upon His strength, for this is where we come to know Him more.