So, how are those resolutions? Maybe that is a tough question for you to answer. Maybe you have already broken them, disappointed yourself, and maybe you even feel like you have disappointed God because you have failed to grow in spiritual and physical commitments. I love that a New Year comes, with its hopes, wishes, and resolutions. However, at the same time I believe it's appropriate that February follows January. In February we celebrate love, mostly on Valentine's Day. I hope that you remember that you are loved, cherished, and wanted, and there is a cross and resurrection of Christ that prove this for all eternity. I pray that you do not beat yourself up with guilt and shame and forget the wonderful love of God that He has so gracefully lavished on you. Ephesians 1:7-8a, "In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us."

Recently, I was reading Psalm 119 as part of my quiet time. If you are familiar with the Psalm, it is speaking of the Word of God as worth more than riches and gold. I instantly felt guilty for neglecting time in the Word. However, the last verse of the Psalm brought great comfort. Psalm 119:176 says, "I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands." The psalmist, after pouring their heart out about the Word of God, comes to the Lord with a humble confession: I have strayed. He confesses our wandering heart, our tendency to stray, our dangerous drift from the Shepherd. The good news is the gospel is that God knows all of this, and then the Good Shepherd watches out for us, searches for us, finds us, and rescues us. He is the Good Shepherd (John 10) and I am a sheep. Thankful for His compassion to those of His flock, including me. I pray that the second year of my ministry at Woodmont will reflect His heart and compassion for His sheep more each day.

In Christ,

Chad

I've been thinking about marriage a lot lately--probably because, as I write this, I am five days away from my thirtieth wedding anniversary. Even as I type that, I feel I need to go back and recheck my math: 30 years? That can't be right... Can it???

I've also been reminiscing about my first full-time ministry position--also 30 years ago--leading music (and youth) in a smallish, rural church in Southeast Missouri. Often on Sunday nights, I would impose upon my new bride to pick up a microphone and join me as I led worship songs from the piano. I would sing the lead vocal, and she would add her lovely alto, and while it was not at all what that country church was accustomed to, the way I saw it, they were blessed to get two for the price of one.

One day, a dear lady in the church approached me and thanked me for having my wife lead with me. She said she'd been in church all her life and never felt comfortable singing out because, always having had a male worship leader, she couldn't make her voice find the right range of pitches. She said, "But I can hear what your wife is doing, and it makes sense to me; I can follow her!"

This woman's testimony expresses one of many reasons to have a team of worship leaders (a praise team.) But it also strikes me as a pretty strong metaphor for my marriage. On my own, I am a melody. A single line of notes is all I can accomplish. And it's...okay. But joined together and in concert with Corinne? There is harmony, richer tone color, and added depth, and suddenly I make sense. There is also complexity, and sometimes discordance that is always ultimately drowned out by beauty.

Last night Larry McCluskey told me that the song he has chosen to sing in church this Sunday is "Sweet Beulah Land." What a coincidence, I thought, as I remembered from seminary days that Beulah is a Hebrew word meaning marriage. It reminds us that we are the Bride of Christ and that one day our Groom will come for us and we will live happily ever after in glorious wedded bliss, permanent residents of the City of Zion.

The covenant of marriage: joy of earth and joy of Heaven. Until I am called to take my place at the table for a wedding feast to end them all, I will rejoice in the wife of my youth, gladly growing old and wise with her, and will keep the music playing as long this life shall last.

(Happy Anniversary to my darling.)

Kevin