Below is an email that my beautiful bride sent out to friends here the other day:

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever. (1 Chronicles 16:34)

What an incredibly “purifying journey”!

First, our Dallas house has sold after close to a year on the market. God preserved enough equity to actually purchase a home here in Moorhead, Minnesota (Fargo-Moorhead is an area here in Minnesota/North Dakota. Yes, we are still at Bethel!!). We are grateful as financial forecasts for us were sometimes worrisome and we feared foreclosure or worse. Bethel has been beyond generous, and God has used them to “hold up our arms” at this critical time. What a blessing!

Secondly, Emily and Katy have acclimated to their new city/town. Adjustment was especially hard for Katy as a major move had not happened in her “memory”, so the adjustments to be made were uncharted territory. They both attend Park Christian School in Moorhead, Minnesota; a wonderful ACSI accredited school in the area we are privileged to be a part of. They have been troopers through school changes, moving AGAIN in January (don’t recommend that!), and a very stressful winter of blizzards and winter storms that ended in a 500 year flood in March/April.

Third, we all came to terms with our “humanity” in a profound way as we experienced the flood of 2009. We evacuated our house in tears, grateful that our people (and new baby Labrador retriever Dixie) were well, but fearful as we worried about our own “stuff” and our neighbors’ well-being. Only days after evacuating we had another late spring winter storm to complicate matters. Our very full basement (full of stuff, that is – two finished rooms plus tons in storage) was emptied out and piled all over our upstairs on March 22^nd, and was put back together after flood repair on May 27^th. It was weeks upon weeks of household chaos, all the while still attempting to do school/work/church life. Yet – we found ourselves quite grateful as we saw many neighbors with large dumpsters of debris in their driveways. We found ourselves protected from a lot that others had to endure. Suffering is common to man, but painful nonetheless! Many dear ones we know are in apartments awaiting repair. We were blessed to be back in a livable home after only 8 days or so.

Fourth, God continues to be sweet and tender in confirming our sure call to Bethel Church. He is so kind to often evidence why He has called us here. Matthew remains busy as ever (maybe more so!!), but is able to focus on very specific areas of his calling and not be spread so thin. He manages to constantly squeeze 80 hours of work into 60! Christa was hired as the Director of Women’s Ministry as of December 1, 2008, and I find myself surprised, humbled, and energized by this new assignment. It is a blessing to be used in this arena and our family has been working on this adjustment too (among all of the others!!) as I have not worked outside the home since the girls were born. Matthew and I seek God’s equipping, wisdom, and courage as we desire to serve Him faithfully. He is so very good, and we are so very amazed at all He is up to! Anyone who feels God is boring or predictable, has simply allowed Him to get too small!!

And, we are delighting in a beautiful summer after what the locals have called a “worse than normal winter”. Snow blowing the driveway at the crack of dawn, layers upon layers of clothing, driving slow and not zipping ANYWHERE, parkas and snow boots – they have all been put aside for mild and long summer days. I don’t miss three digit temps or traffic in Dallas! When January gets long, I will be longing for 70 degrees again, however.

I realize this is a brief and somewhat cryptic update, but it has been on my heart to touch base with many of you and to quite honestly proclaim God’s goodness in the chaos of these times. I don’t ever recall a 12 month period of my life ever going this fast! It was just last weekend a year ago that we visitedFargo for the first time. Feel free to pass this along to any you might think would want an update of sorts on the St.John’s.

Praying this finds each of you sensing God’s great care, love and provision in your life. As God brings you to mind, we will always pray for His best for each of you and for His hand to be at work in your lives.

Blessings!

Christa for all of us

O God, the Author of All Good,

I come before You with great thanksgiving for a marvelous springtime

And am filled with much anticipation regarding summer’s arrival.

As your people prepare to launch into summer’s many things,

Give us Your safekeeping,

Your joy,

Your steadfast provision of all necessary bounty,

Your precious wisdom and counsel,

And all that Your Sabbath rest embodies.

May it be, O Mighty One, that as each day slips into night,

And night returns to day,

We will be found faithful to the task of giving all people your Gospel,

And that we will be not lacking in our spiritual fortitude,

That in righteousness we shall walk,

That in awesome dependence we shall abide with Jesus,

That in much grace we shall live,

That others will find us believable for You.

Enable us, Faithful Lord, to stay the course of faith,

And grant that at summer’s end we shall not be found empty of spiritual affections.

Allow us to offer love as the greatest expression of our gratitude to You,

So that summer’s leisure will not replace godly responsibility,

Many travels abroad would not displace our trips to Your Throne,

Provided respite will not supplant divine rest,

And our neighbors will not be reckoned as annoyances in the midst of summer’s lazy days.

For Your reputation alone do we go forth with great excitement and trust,

For Yours is the day

And the night belongs to You.

Thus, we glorify You today, and with each coming summer hour.

Amen.

While reading through the record of Israel’s assorted kings one happens upon a reference to one of Israel’s admired prophets. 2 Kings 13:20-21 offers this concise accounting of a very unusual event:

So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. And as a man was being buried, behold, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha, and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha he revived and stood and his feet.

Evidently someone was having a funeral. A man had died. The family and friends of this man were preparing to place him in the tomb in which lay the body of the great prophet Elisha. About that same time a group of villains came upon the scene, and in the ensuing chaos the dead man got hurriedly tossed into the tomb. But he didn’t stay dead long. Upon touching the bones of Elisha, he came back to life and stood on his feet. What a shock that must have been to everyone!

Consider this question: what kind of influence will you have beyond the grave? It is unlikely that any of us will be used of God to literally raise a dead man to life. But we could still be useful for the reviving of weary souls. Could the life you live today bring refreshment to the lives of those who will remain long after you enter Heaven? And why wait to see the results from Heaven’s vantage point. Could the life you live bring refreshment to people today?

Take a moment right now and think about the folk around you. Consider the woman at the cash register. Think about the man who waits your table at the restaurant. How about your next-door neighbor—you know, the one with the for sale sign in the yard who you never met. If these dear people happened across your path today, would they be revived in spirit, refreshed in their souls, captivated by the Savior and forced to deal with the abundant life?

Or would they simply—Heaven forbid—brush up against a dead man’s bones, with nothing to show for it?

Would you join me this day in asking our God to let our lives—yours and mine—be so reflective of Christ that all who interact with us would be refreshed with the authentic, life-changing love of God?

How about we ask Him right now.

With stealthy precision that ancient sage Samuel offers in 1 Samuel 12 a charge for making life work. Stand in the midst of the crowd that has gathered and heed what Samuel says: And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty (v. 21).

Do not turn aside after vain things. Rather simple, eh?

However, consider one chief subtlety that quietly traps you—something that seems so helpful and rings so true and feels so right. Consider the subtlety of spiritual busyness? This is the drive to find your validity in the constant pace of spiritual activity, as if another meeting at church or another Christian book or another spiritual discipline or another retreat or another Bible study or another service project or another hospital visit will send you over the top of spiritual maturity. Just writing the sentence makes me tired!

Money, power, sex, and peers—these are among the big-ticket items that we tend to think of as being so empty. And they can be! But it seems that the more trying things are those that most easily get the best of us. How many of us, for instance, refuse to concede the possibility that we could—heaven forbid—be caught in the spiritual fast lane?

When Samuel gave his speech it was largely centered on the fact that the people wanted a king so that they also “may be like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:20). And who wouldn’t want a king? Political influence, international prestige, military might, economic power—these were some of the good things a king brought with him.

But for Israel it proved empty. It did not profit. It did not deliver. And in the same manner the temporal things in which we place our stock—though seemingly good and important—let us down because, well, they simply are not God. Thus Samuel’s other exhortation: do not turn aside from following the Lord (12:20).

Try as we might to justify this kind of high-paced living, telling ourselves and others that “we’re growing spiritually,” it can really be nothing more than an attempt to validate ourselves and make us feel like we have fulfilled our Christian duty. But friend, beware! The evil one would greatly relish seeing us displace the Holy God for so-called holy living. Spiritual busyness of the kind many churches promote is the antithesis to Jesus’ invitation to come and rest (cp. Matthew 11:28). And in the end, though we would sure look “like all the nations,” we will simply be worn out sons and daughters of a real King who would have preferred we turn to His side wherein we find true solace and respite and reward.