Rising above

There are times in everyone's lives when it seems like your day or your week is a carefully stacked Jenga game, and that someone has pulled out one of the critical blocks that keeps your precariously balanced tower upright. One thing goes wrong, and then the whole thing collapses.

We've had that kind of week. It's not that anything terrible has happened, it's just that countless details in work and daily life seem to have gotten overwhelmingly complicated, or not be working as they should. Deadlines are missed as miscommunications arise; bills that you paid months ago by phone are not credited to your account, and new invoices show up at your doorstep with additional penalties and late fees and demands that you pay them within the next five days; computers (not one, but two) crash beyond repair; carefully crafted schedules are disrupted by numerous unexpected interruptions; projects stretch on longer than expected.

It's not so bad when just one or two things cause some minor stress. But when everything happens at once, it's like being in a tornado. And you warily wonder when the next lightning bolt will strike, the next thing will go wrong.

We notice this happens a lot when we're approaching something important: In this case, a ministry conference that we leave for on Monday.

It is important to us to be fully present in next week's ministry opportunities, tuned in to where God wants us to be and what he wants to say to us and through us, ready for those divine appointments that we couldn't plan, no matter how carefully and intricately we schedule our time. We really wanted to give ourselves the buffer of a quiet weekend to prepare our hearts and minds.

Right now, as work piles up and deadlines loom, it seems especially difficult to shift our focus toward God, rejecting distractions and obstacles that would prevent us from giving him our full attention.

We would value your intercession for us now and over the next few weeks, so that we can rise above what seeks to disquiet and distract us from what God has in mind for us.

Thank you for your partnership in our calling!