Have you stopped to look back lately at months gone by? Isn’t it amazing how time flies? We were celebrating Christmas and New Year the other day and here is another one knocking at the door. How ready are you for the coming season? I wish I can confidently answer that same question. I do know that I have uphill tasks to complete, inescapable decisions to face, critical bills to pay, and essential moves I must make. How does that make me feel? At the mercy of He who neither sleeps nor slumber.

I look back and I marvel at God; the mountain are still there staring me hard in the face but I see little valleys filled by His miraculous powers. Standing on those “once” valleys, I stretch my hope in God with whom nothing is impossible. I lift my head above the pressures, and look far beyond the challenges, to see God waiting to perform and to perfect that which concerns me. How do I know? His word tells me so day after day and I hear His Spirit breathing the same across my face that even the hairs on my skin intimately know and respond to those promises – they have become the air that keep my heart beating and my faith standing, irrespective of performances: knowing that His promises are sure as I await the revelation of His greater glory.

I was discussing with a friend this evening and I said, “Abba and I are so close and I still feel challenged and overwhelmed, how would it have been if I had to cope all by myself?” One of my greatest achievements this year is that He has drawn me consistently closer to Himself, so close I can feel His breath, sense His moves, watch His smile, observe the frown, cheer at His approval, and wonder at His persistent restraint. I have walked the heights and crawled at depths, each step with the sense of His nearness that precarious situations couldn’t conceal. And at the edges between life and death, I have felt everlasting arms roll me effortlessly to newness. In those valleys, I have heard Abba speak of and display things that eyes have not seen, and ears have not heard, or minds conceived, which He has prepared for those that trust Him to the end. Any wonder I am still stuck with Him by choice?

As this year enters its final days, silver and gold I have not to celebrate, but one thing did I seek, that one thing I found and have held onto with all I am; a consistently closer communion with the Man that makes my heart come alive with goodness and mercy, the Man that makes the world a wonder and life, a beautiful adventure. And I bring you these words of hope today, that Abba has great things in store for His children; things not tied to times and events, things that world economic recession cannot stop or depreciate its value. Abba said to remind you, that in the days of Noah, the waters came from on high and from the deep, and the same water that drowned many, lifted the chosen to safety and kept them afloat until the ground was ready to receive them. Be encouraged. May His promises cause you to lift up your eyes and look again. As far as your eyes can see, in these times and seasons, so far will Abba restore and replenish. Indeed, you are blessed!

Glory!