Missions Newsletter - February 2021

The Castles

Hey everyone!

I hope 2021 has been a better start to the year than 2020 was for most of us. Though we live in a world with what seems to be an unprecedented level of uncertainty, fear, risk, change, and disunity, I have been praying God's people will represent a different way. Not because we are immune or spared from the hardships of 2020 and those that will surely come in 2021, but because we have a hope that does not disappoint.

I have been reflecting on the words of Paul to the church of Corinth in 2 Corinthians 4. In verses 8-9, Paul admits how incredibly difficult his own journey has been. He describes feeling "afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down". In the opening of the letter, he says he and his fellow believers were "so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself" and they felt as if they "had received the sentence of death itself". We don't often think of Paul using this sort of language and it's startling. He doesn't mince words about the brutal reality he was facing externally and internally. Yet, even as he acknowledges the depth of the brokenness he experiences, he doesn't camp out there.

He goes on to describe that in spite of all this, he is "not crushed, not driven to despair, not forsaken, and not destroyed." He says God allowed the feeling of death "to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again." So, not denying or diminishing those legitimate trials and valleys, but in the midst of them, Paul points to a greater hope. A reliance on his Savior who is teaching us to rely on him and to look to him for deliverance.

I pray as we enter this new year, our perspective will be an eternal one. Let us look to the Lord for our deliverance from these trials and strange times, and trust in God and not ourselves. Let us set our hope on Jesus ultimately, not on our circumstances. Let us look to the things that are unseen, not to what is seen. May we have an eternal perspective and an eternal hope.

2021 is going to be a year of replanting. Many things that used to be healthy rhythms and priorities and established parts of our lives have bcome malnourished and even wilted. I am praying we will each fight for and focus on a replanting of those vital rhythms in our lives. Let us seek to find the healthy and appropriate ways to gather, to worship, to encourage, to pray with, to serve, to go, and to strengthen. It is my goal to replant these things in my own life, and to help us all to find the right ways to do this together, in our city partnerships and in our global partnerships.

So, take heart. Pray for eternal perspective and hope. Rebuild and replant. Strengthen what remains. Do so in community and for the sake of the body and to reach the lost. I am praying for you and am here to serve you however I can.

Your brother,
Dwight Castle