Fathers

We just arrived at Gate 102 at SFO, two hours before our departure time. We're both sitting on the floor of the airport, waiting to board, charging our Apple products, and trying to wrap our minds around the fact that in just over twelve hours we'll be in Beijing.

Of course, today is a hard day to leave. I had to leave my parents at the security check point this Fathers' Day. While wrapping him in a big hug, I whispered in my dad's ear, "Happy Fathers' Day, Dad. I love you. But you know I'm on loan. I have a greater Father to serve today."

Today, I travel with two fathers: Erik, who has raised me through Young Life, and is technically old enough, and has been married long enough to legitimately be my father, and my Father in Heaven, whom I go to serve. I'm looking forward to spending the next month with both of them, digging into the heart of Young Life in Mongolia, training, encouraging and equipping, while being trained, encouraged and equipped along the way.

I go into this trip knowing that I have much to offer, but knowing that I have many opportunities to learn. And the Enemy is already actively trying to steal, kill, and destroy every one of those opportunities. For the past year I have struggled with clinical depression that has recently knocked me to the floor. I do not believe that the depression is in and of itself spiritual. It is a biological chemical imbalance. But the Enemy has been using this illness and has been attacking me where I'm weakest. But my Father promises that in our weakness we are made strong.

And so I cling to my Father, my Shepherd who makes me lie down in green meadows by quiet streams, who doesn't abandon me in the valley of the shadow of death, but walks with me daily as I follow him.