After a (too) long hiatus, Missions Wednesday is back! I really want to be disciplined with posting these because they are so helpful in opening my eyes to the nations. I need that. So I hope they help you as much as they help me!
Life is Not a Deadline
By nature I’m not a very disciplined person. It’s taken a lot of years for me to get a system in place that works for me. After conversion, my desire for discipline grew, but it’s still something I have to work at. So I create lists. If a task is written down in front of me I will do it. And there is something so satisfying about crossing something off a list. My most recent job was very deadline driven, so I had to learn to operate on a deadline every day when I went into the office.
Suffering Produces Faith in Future Grace
Friday is for Food: Shrimp Tacos
I have only recently started making seafood related meals. For most of my life I have had an aversion to all things seafood, especially fish. Shrimp sort of freaked me out too, but I would occasionally eat them if I was forced, I mean encouraged to. Daniel really enjoys seafood and has helped me to branch out and try new things, which I have to admit has been a really good thing for me. I never realized how many things I would like. I've really been missing out!
What You Can't Learn on an Island
The saying “no man is an island” is cliché and overused, but the gist of it is true. God made us to be relational beings. He didn’t create us to be autonomous, self-sufficient, loners. He created us for fellowship, and togetherness. And to use another cliché, he created us for community. Not so we can tout how community focused we are, or even that we are authentic, real people. These are good things to strive for, in fact they are crucial to living life as Christians.
Will You Please "Like" Our Church?
We've enjoyed getting settled here in Little Rock and finally feel like we have some time to actually think, plan, and relax. After a wonderful three-day weekend, it was back to reality today and with it came a new development with our church plant...we have a Facebook page! When you are in the beginning stages all developments are a big deal.
Happy Two-Year Anniversary!
Wow. It's hard to believe it's been two years already. For those who have been married a long time, two years probably seems really small. And it is considering our hope that God will give us many, many years together. But for us it's just gone by so fast that it's hard to believe that two years ago I was all dressed up ready to walk down the aisle to join in marriage to my best friend.
Count It All Future Joy
I’ve thought a lot about the experience of suffering and the Bible’s response to our suffering this past year. Before our miscarriage and infertility I quickly passed over passages on suffering, not because I didn’t see them as important, but I just didn’t relate to them. I had faced trials before, but nothing that really made me wrestle with God’s good plan for my life in the way I have recently. I don’t doubt his goodness; I just need to understand it more than ever before. While difficult, that is a good result of our suffering. It causes us to lean hard into him and desperately seek his face because without his presence in our lives we are hopeless.
Piper on Romans 8:28
"If you live inside this massive promise [Romans 8:28], your life is more solid and stable than Mount Everest. Nothing can blow you over when you are inside the walls of Romans 8:28. Outside Romans 8:28 all is confusion and anxiety and fear and uncertainty. Outside the promise of all-encompassing future grace there are straw houses of drugs and alcohol and numbing TV and dozens of futile diversions. There are slat walls and tin roofs of fragile investment strategies and fleeting insurance coverage and trivial retirement plans. There are cardboard fortifications of deadbolt locks and alarm systems and antiballistic missiles. Outside are a thousand substitutes for Romans 8:28.
Friday is for Fotos: Graduation Day!
After three and a half years of studying, papers, tests, and hard work, Daniel walked across the stage this morning at Southern Seminary to receive a Master of Divinity degree. I could not be more proud of him today, and every day, really. He worked tirelessly to complete the program while working part time as a shift manager at McDonald's and as a youth pastor. His efforts to complete the program quickly and with excellence is evidence of his Christ-like leadership and provision for us. He started seminary as a single man and came out a married man (not uncommon around here). I love you, Daniel and I am so proud of you!