The One About Immigration, Anniversaries, and the Wonder of the Local Church

Dear West Family

I am a big anniversary guy. I love looking at Facebook memories (the only remaining use for Facebook); I visit an “on this day in music history” website every day; I make notes in my calendar of significant events and moments in people’s lives because I want to be able to remember those with them, and I try to do that well for our family as well so that we have a growing pile of Ebenezer stones of God’s faithfulness which we hope He will use to build something significant. I am an “anti-stoic'' - if you like - as I do run the danger of spending more of my energy on nostalgia as I look back, and naive hope as I look forward, than I do on actually living in the present moment. I guess it serves as an escapism of sorts, though there are more destructive ones, to be sure.

This Sunday will mark the 5th anniversary of our family landing in Austin. I have only one main emotion attached to it … thankfulness. We have been treated with a love, warmth, grace, mercy, and kindness that we do not deserve and will never be able to repay. 

As I consider all of this, my heart and mind are both connected with Paul’s words to the saints in Colossians 1, where he says …

3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.  - Col 1:3–5a (ESV)

Like Paul, when we pray for you all (which is often) our prayers are marked with thanks. We thank God for your faith; we thank God for your love for us and for each other; we thank God for the hope that He has laid up for you in heaven. Paul goes on, and so do we.

Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf 8 and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.  - Col 1:5b–8.

Like Paul, we celebrate that the word of the truth of the gospel was implanted in this community by people other than us. I love that I get to be a small part of the story of a church that I didn’t start, haven’t shaped, and which doesn’t rely on me for ongoing flourishing and health. That is so humbling and so liberating to me and to us. I love that I get to lay small stones on the big walls built by Matt Carter, Kevin Peck, Halim Suh and so, so many others. What a gift God has given this church in a diversity of voices over time. But Paul goes on, and so do we.

9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. - Col 1:9–12.

These are my prayers for us as a church in the years ahead, however many of them the Lord allows. I pray that you would be filled with the knowledge of His will. I pray that you would walk in grace in a manner worthy of the Lord, pleasing Him and bearing fruit in good works! I pray that you would be strengthened with all power from God, and that His power would sustain you for endurance and patience and supernatural joy which overflows in hearts full of thanksgiving. I pray that you would remember, and believe, and be certain that He has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints, and I pray that this would liberate and motivate you to live for Him!

Oh church, thanks for taking us in. I cannot wait to see what God does over the next five years. What an adventure it is to be part of a community of God’s people. Let’s keep going.

It is all grace.

Press on.
Ross

PS This is my final Thursday email for 2022. Thank you so much to all of you who have read them. They will be back, Lord willing, in January.