A NEW BEGINNING

This from a card that Jeanne received:

"There's a better way to think of retirement -- call it your refirement! Look deep inside yourself for those sparks that have been smoldering all these years, waiting for you to lay the necessary aside and take a deep breath.  As the oxygen rushes in, those sparks are sure to burst into flame once again. You are more than a job, more than an occupation. You are God's amazing and unique creation. You have faithfully carried out your first calling. Now it's time to joyfully embrace the second and third and fourth.....Congratulations on your refirement?"

"Well done, thou good and faithful servant."   Matthew 25:21 NKJ

I love that! We have used that word, "refirement" ever since. As my friend Mike Grall often told me, "you can't buy back time."  I have reflected often about time since the Sept 7 transition service where Living Hope Church commissioned Mike LeClaire to be the new Senior Pastor. The Word has a lot to say about time and I want to share some of those with you in blogs to come.

One thing for sure friends, everybody has a ministry that God has called them to. Up North Wisdom says it doesn't make any difference whether you are a teacher, mill worker, house wife, office worker, business man, pastor, etc. Wherever life takes you each day, that is your ministry -- that is your mission field.  Your neighborhood, your family, your place of occupation or your church - everyone is called to serve, to minister in those places. Am I redeeming the time?  Are you? As my beautiful wife, Jeanne, has often said:  Each day is a gift from God and we need to see it as such.

And of course remember and never forget:  The Best Is Yet To Come!  I hope you still believe that.