new year

Hello everyone,
We're back.
We have been thinking about our lives recently...why we are here, for how long, the things we have witnessed God accomplish around us and through us, etc.
It has been quite a year...2008.
I won't bore you with the details of what we have considered to be blessings in our life the last year, and the ways in which we have grown as Christians. But will you permit me a synopsis of my sermon this morning to our missionary community?
As our family enters this new year, we are commited to these 3 ways of thinking.

I. We look forward by walking with God.
Abraham was credited as having amazing faith because, among other things, he was willing to go to a place without knowing where he was going. He was highlighted in the "Hall of Faith" in Hebrews 11 for that very reason. God never gave him a full map; He just kept asking him to say yes all along the journey. Yes to going into Egypt. Yes to circumcision (at 99!). Yes, to even killing his own son. Abraham was never shown these destinations beforehand.
I have noticed in my own family's life that we get most anxious and stressed when we have a certain destination in mind. A certain road. A date. A place to go. A certain goal to accomplish. We then cease to follow God, and we start to ask Him to bless our way. What a stressful way to live!
We are commited this year, as last year, to keeping our hands open to hold His, and to follow Him to places we don't even know about.

II. We look back by commemorating special moments with God.
I built an altar with my son this week. A Biblical altar. We made it with rocks we found on the mountain on which we live. Abraham was good at this too. He built an altar after God first spoke to him in Genesis 12. He bowed and marked the moment. He built one again before he entered Egypt because he was afraid and knew his life would never be the same again. He built one again after he entered the land God had promised him. He decided to remember the moment. The next time he built one he was preparing to kill his only son, Isaac.
I've never been good at this. I made a commitment this year with my family to mark moments along the way so that we can remember God's faithfulness, even as we struggle to be faithful. We want to remember the times in our lives when we knew we would never be the same again. We've had some of those moments in the last year. I'm sure God has more to come. And I want to honor him by marking them as a family.

III. By living this way we open ourselves to God's blessing.
Abraham was promised a lot of great things by God. Great nation. Multitudes and generations of followers and children. Protection.
But Abraham was not promised an easy life. He was not promised a life with enough money to make ends meet. He was not promised a 401K, or a retirement plan. He wasn't even promised health or happiness.
He was promised legacy.
He was blessed with a life that mattered. And isn't that what we all want? Don't we all want our lives to mean something? That people will look back and say about our expired lives, that if we had not said yes to God, the world would have been a worse place for others?
I sooooo want that for me and my family. I want my life to count.
This is our journey.
God bless you for going with us.
God bless you for the journey you are on with the Great and Loving Creator.