Refocus

All year we focused on engaging on the edge of the Church, showing you how the Church is pushing that edge farther out. As the year ends, let’s redirect our focus to the challenges of facing a new year, whether those challenges be physical, spiritual, emotional or relational.

Ears That Speak

Leila Cross knows about challenges. After spending the last year in culture and language study, a side benefit was finding a spiritual object lesson in, of all places, the kitchen. And it was about corn. Leila observed different processes of taking corn from its harvested state to any number of delicious dishes — and each process was rough on the corn.

“I [could] imagine the corn saying, ‘Stop! That’s enough! It hurts too much! I can’t take it anymore! How much suffering do you think I can deal with? Why is this happening to me? When will the pain end?’” Leila wrote. “[And then] the Holy Spirit spoke [in] His still, small voice: ‘You are the corn.’ That simple analogy provided much food for thought, prayer and meditation.”

God’s Recipe

“I shouldn’t be afraid. God knows what He’s doing. He has a ‘recipe’ all planned out, and the result will be oh-so-unimaginably good. In the moment I perceive His finished work, all the delays and suffering will make sense and prove to be minimal, compared to the glory of what God has in store.” Let’s face the New Year with the same attitude as Leila.