New Start for 2016

 

Every once in a while we need to regroup, reorganize and restart our priorities especially when it comes to the personal things in life.  Everyone faces these restarts differently; some do so with question, others with quite reserve and still others with uncertainty and speculation.  One thing is certain and that is, each new day will provide all of us a certain amount of unseen variables.  Every year is different bringing with it a calendar full of challenges and obstacles that will need to be faced and often calls for us to take a look at the priorities that we have put in place in our lives.  Some days you will find that you are up to the challenge and other days you will feel overwhelmed.  The times that we feel that overwhelming feeling is most likely when life interrupts and throws us a curveball our way.  Last year was one of the curveball years.  I started the year having every intention to write and blog more but partway through the year life threw us a curveball.  We were faced with a short and unexpected hospital stay which in turn slowed me down immensely.  We do hope and pray that this year we will be able to pick up where we left off in all areas of ministry especially blogging, and I want to thank those who have asked us to continue with our blog.

We plan to face this restart of blogging with eyes wide open and with the expectation that the Lord will continue prove Himself and to do many great things as He has in the past.  It has at times surprised me in the way that God moves in and out of the pages of our life’s story.  Then, if we will be honest with ourselves, as we reflect on the past we will all find that we were the ones who were weaving in and out of God’s story.  He has continued to step in to help us face each of life’s situations.  I am reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul which says, “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.  (20) Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” (Ephesians 3:19-20)  I know that He is going to be there for me because He is faithful to His Word.  He cannot change nor can He deny Himself but moreso, He is faithful even when we are not.

I would like to post this new blog with a personal twist in that I would like to share our thanks to God for His faithfulness and for His presence in our heart and life.  I thank Him for my wife and family who continue to stand by my side and put up with my many idiosyncrasies.  I thank and praise God for our very close friends who have walked with us these past few years and continue to not only support us but also give us guidance and accountability when needed.  I wish to thank the Lord, and pray for my dad who will be celebrating his 88th birthday this year, for our oldest son who will be getting married in June and for our dog Gabriel, who we rejoiced in his 14th birthday this past February.

I would like it to be known of me that when I speak that I try to use words that are most often fitting, direct and not spoken maliciously.  In the book of Proverbs we are reminded in that, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” Proverbs 25:11 and James 1:19 which says, “...my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.”  I have tried hard to develop and to practice listening skills to uplift and help others.  This has been especially helpful as I sit across the counseling table from those who come to us for Biblical Counseling.  Far too often we find that we desire to invoke repair thoughts before hearing the whole thought process of those we are talking too.  We find that this characteristic is also covered in the Scriptures, “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.” Proverbs 18:13.  I do pray that these words will ring true in the counseling room and in all of life’s situations.

As I start blogging this Year, my desire is that the following words will be a pattern for life, “Lord I hear you and thank you for your ever presence in my life.  I need you to help me to take the first steps when needed and above all please help me to walk the paths that you will be leading me.  Lord Jesus, help me to rid myself of my own sinful and selfish desires and cleanse my heart of my selfish ways so that others can see you and not me.”

As a Biblical counselor I want to show the same compassion that Jesus does in the Gospels, and Paul in his Epistles so carefully and heart fully demonstrated.  I want to express a loving-kindness toward those who are hurting and offer gentle persuasion to help bring them to a full knowledge of the Lord Jesus.  I do believe that compassion has to be more than just a feeling of sympathy and heart-felt sorrow.  It has to be more than simple empathy, it has to be an action that helps others to want to take the appropriate steps that will meet their needs more than just satiny their feelings.  I do believe that this is the direction that the Father wants us to go.  We find that He has given us this example to follow in Psalm 103:13, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.”  Here we find two expressions of the compassion offered us by God the Father first, we see that He “has” compassion on his children but we also see that He “showed” compassion on everyone not just His own but on others as well.

My hope, my desire, my passion this year is to show more of Jesus and less of me.  No matter if it is in my home life, at work in private meetings and especially to all those who we will encounter in the counseling room.  I want to be a reflection of John 3:30, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”