Almost a year in...

It is fast approaching one year since we moved here - new home, new parish, new church, new people, new college for TeenSon... I can't quite believe how time's flown by actually, it's been a bit of a whirl in some senses and as I think back it's hard to remember what my hopes and expectations were for this first year? I suspect they weren't actually that richly defined, but along the lines of 'get to know the people[in my church and beyond], walk alongside them with God, see how things work here, pray quite a lot and see what God seems to want'? I don't have one of those tales of supersonic-church-growth or doubled income (though who knows what time and God will bring here?) but I do have a love of these people I share a lot of life and ministry with. And for me that's one of the joys of ministry - I enjoy less the pressure of producing measurable results - some (pressures) that come from beyond me and some from within. 'For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven... a time to sow and a time to reap.' (Ecclesiastes 3) This I don't have trouble believing, but fending off the niggling doubt that I won't create anything reapable as well as trying to convince others to be patient is another story!
God can do great things, I just hope he'll do them in us, and that I won't get in the way! It's all too easy to find the discouragements under every stone when the real challenge is keeping eyes fixed on God and trusting him.