Total Loss

Some dear friends of ours lost their house this weekend. They had gone out shopping, and came home to find their house on fire. They ran in to get the dog (who was fine) and whatever else they could grab in a couple of moments, but lost everything else. This is a house they had built - father and son - with their own hands.

They have three children, including a three-month-old. The husband is an auto mechanic and a licensed minister who recently planted a church in the middle of the inner city. The wife is a dynamo helping out with everything at the new church. When I think of my highest hopes for the generation below mine, these are the people I think of.

The fire happened Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning, they were at church - all five of them - and the husband brought a message of victory and resolve to continue the work God has tasked him with. I am beyond inspired. And I am so excited to see where God takes them from here.

Because it is only when we completely empty ourselves that God can fill us with His Spirit. It is only when we realize that we have no power of our own that God gives us His power. This family has been emptied. I pray fervently for them to be filled to overflowing with all the blessings God has in store for them.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

- Philippians 3:8-12