There are definitely cycles in our Operation Christmas Child journey and this season is the season of beginnings. It's the time of year when we ask God for His wisdom in making a ministry plan and setting goals for the new year.
Now it seems like this should be exciting, but, truthfully, I always find it a bit daunting and if there's ever a season when I struggle against discouragement this would be it.
From August until November I'm so busy I hardly have time to think and then God gives us an amazing National Collection Week and I ride high on all those answers to prayer until January.
But then it's time to think about building my area team and strategizing to implement the High Impact process. And I realize again how "low impact" I really am. I think I understand these leadership principles fairly well but putting them into practice has always been easier said than done for me.
I stand in my nearly empty storage container and think about how many items we need to be able to pack 21,000 plus boxes at a community-wide packing party in less than 8 months.
Last year at this time I had nearly 19,000 T-shirts and almost that many toothbrushes in the container. Not this year, though. This year God is asking me to wait on Him again. He's asking me to have hope.
This morning on the way to church I heard a preacher on the radio explaining that hope can only be defined in the face of hopelessness. Truth, that.
So I find myself tilting between discouragement and hope. I stand at the bottom of the mountain again looking up. I look at the empty ministry plan template and Satan whispers, "this is really just too hard."
But then I remember God's past faithfulness. I recall again some of the promises from His Word. I ask my prayer team to be in prayer for all of us during this season--
To keep us tilting toward hope.
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