GCV Blog

Sometimes I think too small. Sometimes in the rightness of “stick-to-it-tiveness“, of “wherever you are, be all there,” of “keep your heart where your body is,” I can lose sight of the grandness of God’s Gospel plans. We need to pour our energies into the mission field right around us. But there’s a whole forest of God’s Gospel work beyond these trees. We are part of an entire disciple-making plan that is global in scope. We’re in our own “ends of the earth,” and it’s certainly right to work for Christ’s kingdom right here. But it also helps to remember that we are part of something so much bigger than just our valley.

It’s here. It’s that time, every four years or so, when politics and parties and choice and a better country and red and blue are headlined on every newspaper, magazine, and TV set. And it’s times like these that I feel some of the greatest tension between being an American and being a Christian. I am grateful to be an American. I count it as the grace of God that I’ve been blessed to be born and raised in such a free and prosperous nation. Praise the Lord, being a good American is not currently at odds with being a Christian.

Recently one of our sons shared a joke with me. The funny part was that it was one my father frequently told me as a boy. After the laughter, the reality hit him, “I am becoming my father!” Later on another reality hit me, “Disciples are like their teachers.”

It’s here. It’s that time, every four years or so, when politics and parties and choice and a better country and red and blue are headlined on every newspaper, magazine, and TV set. And it’s times like these that I feel some of the greatest tension between being an American and being a Christian. I am grateful to be an American. I count it as the grace of God that I’ve been blessed to be born and raised in such a free and prosperous nation. Praise the Lord, being a good American is not currently at odds with being a Christian.

So Josie and I had cause to reflect this week. We have been here one month. Here means two hundred miles north of the forty mile radius we have lived our entire lives (with the exception of Josie’s first four in Mexico). One month is thirty days of the the thirty years of marriage we celebrated this week. Thirty years is five grown children and four grand children later. I am tempted to mention the thrill of what lies ahead, but then I would have to include that in the body of this note. At the moment my heart wants to look back and in.