Today is the three hundred and sixty-fifth day of my fifty-third year. At twelve midnight I shall be fifty-four. I never imagined that I would ever be this age. I always thought that these years were for my parents, or better yet my grandparents, but not me. Yet it is my face that is looking at the latter years, and it shows when I look in the mirror. Time has passed along so fast; my children are grown and now I have grandchildren who refer to me as Dadoo. It has now been thirty-six years since I graduated high school, and this fall will make thirty years since I was ordained to the Gospel ministry. There have been years of great productivity and years of great famine. There were years of great happiness and years of great sorrow and despair (even to the point that I didn't know which I would lose first, my mind or my life). I have often been my own worst enemy. I have been both a hero and a villain. Yet through it all God has been faithful. He has never left me nor forsaken me. When I have been faithless, He has always been faithful. When I have been stubborn, He has been long suffering towards me. He is making all things work together for my good and His glory (Rom. 8:28). He has shown me without a doubt that He does not change His mind when He gifts and calls someone (Rom. 11:29). He will restore what the locust have eaten (Joel 2:25).
Over this past year He has shown me that the latter years can be greater than the former, His mercies are new everyday and His grace is never ending. He has moved me from the comfort of the couch to the starkness of the street, from abstract concepts to concrete realities, from talking about discipleship to actually being one. It isn't easy, fear is always there trying to shout down faith and the desire for a secure future whispers into my ear not to venture into the unknown territory that God has set before me. Yet I have found something here that eludes all who are seeking the safe path on the wide plain...contentment (1 Tim. 6:6). I have no idea what year fifty-four holds, I only know that "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me"(Gal. 2:20).
