Casandra Martin

Today is the anniversary of D-Day. D-Day marks the day in which 160,000 allied troops landed in Normandy, France on a mission to overthrow Hitler’s stranglehold on Europe. Under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, troops from the United States, Canada, and England initiated an assault on German troops on five beachheads. This day marked the beginning of the end of World War II.

D-Day is the day in which the allied resolve to answer the evil of Nazi Germany overflowed into action. Men died, blood was shed, and the light of freedom began to glimmer in war-torn Europe. D-Day is often referred to as Decision Day. It is in that picture that we see our path.

We all need a D-Day. Decision Days turn our resolutions into reality. They mark the moment in which our good intentions take concrete first steps. We start moving in the right direction, making the right decisions, and being deliberate about transformation.

On June 6, 1944, the battle wasn’t over, but victory found its first voice. D-Day doesn’t mean Done Day. It is Decision Day. But Decision Day is a necessary first step to being done. If we don’t start, we can’t finish. If we don’t begin, nothing will change. The victories we celebrate later find their roots in our D-Days.

Eisenhower said, “The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice — their choice.”

My Jesus Resolution today is to make today D-Day. I am going to make the decision and take the first steps into God’s purpose for my life. I want to be willing to sacrifice to move ahead. I am going to step onto the beachhead and confront the enemy. I am going to stand by Jesus’ side as He wages war on the sin that holds me in a stranglehold. I am going to celebrate the truth that victory begins with my choice to surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

He was walking through the streets, taking in all the wonders that come with settling into a new place. Our oldest son is being blessed with the opportunity to spend some time this summer in another country. He has already seen one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, served soup to refugees living in makeshift tents, wept with a mother fearful that her daughter had been captured by human traffickers, and stood humbled as a new Christian from Iran explained how he will be killed when he goes home, but is filled with joy because he has Jesus. Today it was a homeless child who opened his eyes and shifted his perspective. A pickpocket to be exact.

He called us very early in the morning to tell us that his wallet had been stolen. Everything was gone – ID, money, bank cards. He had taken the precautions, but still got taken by a thief. It wasn’t the missing stuff that was breaking his heart. Thinking back through the moments around when his wallet went missing, he remembered a small group of homeless children swarming around his group. Malnourished bodies, filthy clothes, the stamp of poverty and hopelessness etched deeply on their little faces. “I would have given them the money,” he said. “All they had to do was ask.”

That is my son. He has a bottomless heart. I wish I was more like him. Instead, I see myself in the pickpocket. How many times do I think that I have to steal blessings, grab my own joy, stuff myself with stuff, and run around frantically to fill an emptiness that scares me because it reveals my broken desperation? Our world teaches us to seize, grasp, snatch, and steal because if we don’t take care of ourselves, no one else will.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” – Matthew 7:7-8

My Jesus Resolution today is to ask. I am going to slow down, mute the world’s whispers, and turn my face to God. He is full of compassion, overflowing with mercy, and rich in love. Too often I try to solve my own problems, answer my own questions, and fill my own emptiness. Today I am going to ask, waiting for the richness God longs to pour into the deep crevices of my soul. I am going to seek His purpose rather than trying to live out my own agenda. I am going to knock, anticipating the moment today when I will see Him reach into His pocket and fill me Himself.