They say that the Devil’s in the details. Well I want to say that God is in the details too! Maybe He is even more in love with the details than the Devil is. These last few days have been full of details: Pick up times, coordination of work schedules and household schedules and shopping schedules, execution of ministry of the minute while keeping and eye to future mission and purpose.

I am teaching a class right now entitled “U.R.”. It is all about who we are made to be in light of Galatians 5:22, the fruit of the Spirit. The premise of the class is that as Christians we already possess all the fruit of the Spirit. We possess love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, faith meekness and self-control. We have them we just don’t always experience them because we allow the fruit to be blocked by the way we view our circumstances.

This morning as the dogs were beginning their barking for about the 10th hour the Lord reminded me of this. I know that in the course of this next year at the Vicarage we will have many challenging experiences. Between having 5 humans and four animals under a roof in need of much repair, the weight of three burgeoning ministries and Mom’s memory issues, I expect barking dogs will be the least of our worries.

Here’s the thing. We can choose to take the weight of all these challenges and details. We can look at them as our problem to solve alone, or we can choose to take the “heavy burdens” …the details and wait in His presence with them until He shows us what to do about them. When we do that our problems cease being problems and they become opportunities for God to show up. That is what I want this year to be. I want it to be a year of us as a family giving God opportunities to show up!

Because everything at the Vicarage becomes a song I thought I would end this post with this thought.