“Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days— You would not believe if you were told.” Habakkuk 1:5 NAS
I love the new year, a sense of fresh beginnings, walking into a new season, filled with great unknowns. I have been told both by friends and family that I am ‘weird’ that way. But I can remember as a child a deep sense of excitement at trying out a new path in the woods, and later the thrill of driving somewhere I had never been before. I still get that thrill. I think it is because, at the center of my sense of discovery is an anchor that holds me fast and steady. The anchor of God’s tender heart toward me, as well as His guiding hand behind the doors that yet wait to be opened, leading to new experiences and challenges.
In the new year, Dan and I like to look over the past year, and take inventory of what has happened in our lives and in the lives of those to whom we minister. We pause, and seek the Lord for the upcoming year, setting our compass anew, to make sure we are on track, on point, to His plans for our lives and not our own.
As people who fully believe in the Holy Spirit and God’s desire to speak to us and show us His plans, still we are always at the vulnerable place where we bring ourselves to Him and say, “Lord. What now? What is next?”
We are grateful and amazed, that at these fully weathered years of our lives, we find the Lord continuing to write His story for us. We look out upon the nations and are astonished. In India, anti-conversion laws have been passed in seven states; in those places it has become against the law to change one’s religion, or to invite others to do so. One is expected to remain the religion of one’s parents until death. This becomes a real challenge to the churches who do His work in those regions. We are blessed to be invited into the heart of them, to come along side, bringing encouragement and ministry to them in their testing season.
China is another place where the church is under a new, and intense backlash. Large churches have been burned, and Christian leaders put in prison. Still, the church in China grows at such a rate, that now there are more Christians in China than the entire population of the United States!
There are more people alive today, who know a Christian personally than in any other time in history. The battle is intensifying because the light of Jesus is shining into the darkest places and shining brightly. The confrontation of light and darkness often produces heat. But one thing we know for sure. That when light confronts darkness, Light wins. Always.
India, Laos, Thailand, China, Myanmar, and the US. These are just some of the countries where the Lord is beckoning us to continue in 2019. Will you pray for us as we follow the Compass of His Will?
~ Debbie Ecker
