The sunrise featured in these photos is the second best I have ever seen. It is the dawn I climbed Mount Sinai to observe during our epic adventure to The Holy Lands. I can only rate it second best, however, because I also witnessed the sun come up this morning. Each new day I am privileged to greet is – always – the most amazing and blessed sunrise of my life.

Life breaking in; light piercing the darkness; the promise of newness; grace abounds.

Because of the tender mercy of our God,
    by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness… – Luke 1:78-79a

Happy New Year!

January 1st, 2019. Yes, it’s here, another New Year both to celebrate and to consider with purposeful resolve. Not so much via idealized “resolutions” so much as a determination to make my trajectory into the coming 365 days the best possible in terms of intention and direction.

I always try to live into each New Year with an overarching theme, a kind of filter through which I pour my writing, my speaking, my living. This year I simply intend to live a grateful life and – in response – live and talk and teach and write in a way that features gratitude as the deep background for everything else.

So for 2019, “Living Gratefully” is going to be the lens through which I look – the frame, the context. I hope – of course – that this idea is not limited to either my writing or to the year 2019, but that it becomes the way that I engage the world, my work, my church, my family, the community, and every single interaction I have.

Christmastime has highlighted – for me – the constant truth that God breaks into this world with LIGHT, with GRACE, with INVITATION, and with PROMISE.

May your experience of 2019 bring all those possibilities to bear on your life, and more.

Living gratefully – DEREK