It’s All You!

On New Year’s morning Patty and I were celebrating by drinking our last “Ebb & Flow” coffee roasted by our kids in the US, (sorry a little advertising ). As we savored the last drops we were discussing Deuteronomy 6-8, a section Patty had just read.

What a fitting text for the New Year. Moses was preparing a new generation to enter into the Promised Land. He reminded this group of wandering people of God’s past faithfulness. How Yahweh brought them out of 400 years of slavery in Egypt. How He had sustained them for 40 years in the most inhabitable desert with water from a Rock and food from Heaven. How He protected and led them with the Glory Cloud of His fiery presence.

Now He was leading them into a land full of abundance with cattle, crops, and constructed homes waiting for them which they did not build. All because He is a promise keeping God who loves them:

“The LORD did not set His heart on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other nations, for you were the smallest of all nations! Rather, it was simply that the LORD loves you and was keeping the oath He had sworn to your ancestors,” (7:7-8).

As we discussed these passages I picked up my journal and wrote these words, “It’s all You!” Looking back on 2021 we can testify both in the valleys of pain and the mountains of joy that the unexplainable love of God carried us along. He is a faithful! He is a promise keeping God.

It’s all about the Father’s love to us in Jesus. He chose us as the least in the world and saved us from the slavery of our sin. He sustains us in the wilderness and through His Spirit leads us into His Kingdom promises as His beloved children.

I began to fill up my journal with praise and overwhelming gratitude. Looking back to all that He did for Oceans both in Africa and the US we have seen miracle after miracle of provision where the Father has moved on hearts of His children to give sacrificially from enormous hearts of love. We have had divine appointments and movements of the Holy Spirit in ministry that can only be the hand of God moving in His sons and daughters.

It is hard to put words to it-but the Father’s love humbles the heart in such a way words are inadequate all I can do is shake my head in awe. All glory goes to God alone it is all Him!

Moses wrote Deuteronomy to remind a new generation that it is all about His unexplainable sovereign love. We have no idea what 2022 holds but we can look up with a blessed hope trusting in His love and shout out in our spirits “It’ All You!”

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless, look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

(Vs. 3 of “Rock of Ages”)

*the meaning of foul is wicked or immoral