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"Family Circus" and Calendars - some thoughts for Lent
There's a classic "Family Circus" cartoon where the little boy is just returning with his dad from his grandfather's grave. Having just seen the birth and death dates on the gravestone, the little guy says, "So I guess Grandpa's life was just the dash between the numbers."
 As the calendar has turne again, none of us knows exactly where we are in that dash between the numbers. Years ago, Billy Graham was asked what had been the biggest surprise of his life. He answered simply, "The brevity of it." That's why Moses prayed, in the psalm he authored, "Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12). Since we don't know how many days we have, make every day count! As I look ahead for this year, God has been impressing on me what that means for the days just ahead.
First, interceding. Instinctively, I'm a better doer than a pray-er. But there's nothing more decisive I can do than to join God in what He's doing on this planet by praying. Look at what Jesus does all day - "He always lives to intercede" (Hebrews 7:25). I'm asking God to make this next year my breakthrough year in "living to intercede" for others. For all I do to help change lives, there is nothing more powerful I can do than to pray for God to change people. To join Jesus in His prayer ministry for people. To ask God to help me see what He sees as I pray. And to ask Him to line up my heart with His as I'm consciously in His Presence.
I also want 2011 to be a year of intentionality in my close relationships. If I don't commit myself to some goals in the lives of people I love, I'll totally miss making the difference God wants me to make. In cherishing my wife, the love of my life, as never before. In consciously building into the lives of the next generation - God has taught me so much that I'm responsible to actively pass on.
 And my heart for 2011 is fired up with intensity to explode the Gospel of Jesus across the world. When I was a very young man, God arrested me with the calling to "bring salvation to the ends of the earth" (Acts 13:47). I want to be more about that than ever before. Whether it's by riding the pervasive technology of the Internet into a world of lost hearts or helping to raise up an army of believers who live to rescue the lost.
I'm excited about the new leadership God is raising up in RHM. With our son Doug as Executive Director, our son Brad and our son-in-law Rick serving as Senior Directors - and some amazing spiritual pioneers making up the RHM Team - we're believing God for a breakthrough year of spreading God's "Good News to everybody, everywhere" (Mark 16:15 - NLB).
With a passion like this in times like these, we're nothing without the prayers of heart-matched friends like you. We are desperately dependent on your prayer for us. And more grateful than ever for it.
In football, the most exciting part of the game is after they sound the two-minute warning. That's when they throw caution to the wind and do whatever it takes to score. We may very well be living in a world that's heard God's two-minute warning. It's time to go for broke...to do whatever it takes to put points on the board for Jesus. And to make every day count.
Feeling the Urgency,
Ron Hutchcraft
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