I took this picture last Saturday from my hotel room. I should have been on a plane home to Phoenix at that time, instead I was snowed in in Greensboro!  I went to NC for the annual Anglican Mission Winter Conference. The plan was to stay from Tuesday and come home on Saturday. Little did I know what some snow could do to Greensboro! I didn’t make it home until Monday night. All of that is incidental to the conference itself. What I can say about that is that I had a wonderful time and truly experienced God’s goodness.

I went to the conference tired, but expectant. God did not disappoint (He never does). Being the 10th Anniversary of the AMiA, there was a looking back, a celebration of what God has done, and a looking forward to what He is going to do. I loudly heard a common theme throughout, not just for the whole group, but for me personally. Maybe you can pick it up:

• In the opening worship, Archbishop Kolini actually said, “stay obedient.”
• Bishop Chuck Murphy, in his great vision casting ways, encouraged us to keep focused on the long-term.
• Pastor Mark Batterson, in his address, made the comment that, “we often overestimate what we can do in the short-term, and underestimate what we can do in the long-term.”
• Dr. J.I. Packer, in his bible-study/devotional time from John 15, said that the “vine-picture” that Jesus used was to show us that “faithfulness leads to fruitfulness.” (I’ll be writing more about Packer’s devotional in an upcoming post).

I have returned with the renewed conviction that I am right where God wants me to be, doing the work that He wants me to be doing. My job is to simply keep trusting Him and to be obedient! Of course that has always been my job, but sometimes it is easy to lose sight of that in the midst of the here and now and the battle we are engaged in. And also of course, that is simply the ALL of our jobs, all who are followers of Christ: keep trusting and be obedient!

God is good. All of the time!

Shane+