A New Season

“Pitchers and Catchers report!” Baseball FANatics live for these words. It signals a new beginning when every team has a mathematical chance of being a champion. The past is forgiven, hope springs eternal. Even though baseball had not yet been invented, New Testament Christians understood the feeling. “Old things have passed away; behold all things have become new” (2 Cor. 5:17). There is a new beginning when one becomes a believer in Jesus Christ. The past is forgiven. The future is one of great hope. But it doesn’t end there, because sin doesn’t end there. We continue to sin, mess up, and have bad seasons. God continues to forgive and offer fresh hope. As major League Baseball’s Spring Training begins again, it might be a good time to ask God to once again forget the last season of our life and fill us with new hope. Join me in doing that this week and then pray with me for the following global concerns:

• Pray for Carrie as she travels to Naples next Friday (20th) to speak to a military wives conference.
• Pray for the prayer emphasis on the tiny island of Gozo, reachable only by boat, or helicopter, and populated by 40,000 Gozitans who speak a dialect of Maltese and are staunchly Roman Catholic in their cultural tradition.
• Pray for Lance and Carrie as her five-week cancer treatment begins this coming Friday in Vienna, Austria.
• Pray for follow-up from the Scripture Use workshop among the Omaande in the village of Bunyunguluk, Cameroon, West Africa.