I’ve spent the last year being continually surprised by God’s grace.

Grace for a smooth transition from life in Mexico to the United States.

Grace for a new job and a new home.

Grace for a new school with a bilingual program and great teachers for our boys.

Grace for friendship, community and opportunities to serve.

Grace for a healthy, beautiful baby girl.

Over and over again God has shown his beautiful, undeserved grace.

And I have been surprised.

I have been surprised by a God who I know to be omnipotent, omniscient, and loving.

How small my faith and imagination are!

And so, as I step into a new year, I long for my faith to be bigger, my imagination to be broader, my acceptance of God’s grace to be deeper.

Let me not just accept the grace, the beautiful gifts, and sit still.  Let me strive to give and be more.  Let me be willing to expect more from my ever gracious God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,

Ephesians 3:20 (ESV)

Let me spend the next year not being surprised, but expectant.  Not expectant that God will fulfill all of my hopes and dreams, but expectant that He will do more than I could ever hope to accomplish on my own.

Let me echo the words of Sir Francis Drake…

Disturb Us, Lord

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Attributed to Sir Francis Drake – 1577