2011.

I’ve been avoiding blogging this past week, not that I have been for lack of things to write.  It’s making the effort from the brain to the keyboard, editing, etc…..I’ve been on vacation.  ‘Nuf said.

Today, I watched Francis Chan speak via live stream at the Passion 2011 Conference in Atlanta, Ga.  My 19 year old daughter is there getting challenged and inspired to be sold out to Christ and the gospel, part of a generation whose passion is none other than Jesus.

Watching the multitudes pray, worship, and listen to Chris Tomlin and Francis Chan, I was transported back in time to Chicago,1988, at the Campus Crusade Christmas Conference, listening to Josh McDowell speak, being challenged and inspired to be sold out to Christ and the gospel.

That following year, several of our friends went on staff with Crusade or pursued other forms of full-time ministry.  A few months before my own wedding I almost called the ceremony off, because I, too, wanted to serve God in this way – full-time ministry.  I know this would not be in an option in the small farming community my fiance and I were to live in.  Sharing the Four Spiritual Laws was not something one did.

My fiance said he would wait for me.  He’s a gentleman that way.  But I didn’t do the unthinkable by calling the wedding off just months away from the Big Day.  We were married within a few months after that conference…….

But I made a decision when settling in Farmland USA that while I was not in full-time ministry, I would invest in eternal things…..and Chuch Swindoll reminded me one day of what this includes:

God’s Word, and People (study on Daniel)

And as I sit here twenty some years, and four kids later, my heart is stirred again to the passion of the hurting and the lost, amazed my daughter is having the same passion stirred in her heart.  It seems like yesterday I was the college student whose eyes were opened to the lost and life beyond the status quo.

Time flies when the status quo clocks the calendar.

I was challenged this morning in my prayer time that prayer is what moves the heart of others and the hand of God.  I was challenged to commit to prayer this year for …the status quo….that not only my heart, but other’s hearts will have a hunger and thirst for God like no other.  I’m committing to pray once a week for an hour for my church and community, that the Church will hunger for the living God…and be free from the status quo.

I don’t think Josh McDowell, Francis Chan, Billy Graham or anyone else has had a new message, more like the same message for different generations.  I’m afraid in the S.Q. it’s easy to lose sight of what is most important…

God’s word, and people.

So, here’s 2011….and my prayer for myself and each of us is to have a burden and a passion for God’s word and people….living the gospel, not just taking it in.  Sharing the power of the risen Savior, full-time, no matter where we are.

And if I forget the purpose, I’ll rewatch the message by Francis Chan  http://live.passion2011.com/, and be reminded what it’s like to be young at  heart and have a passion for Jesus.

May more people know Him this year, because someone in the status quo has cared enough to say, “let me tell you about someone.”

 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

www.thewomanthang.com