We've both been home now for two full weeks! Thank you for your prayers as we continue to seek God's guidance as we fill our days -
Taking one task at a time over the course of the last few days we've "mostly" gotten the yard in shape (Dave did 95% of labor while I admired his handiwork!) And it is beautiful - most weeds gone, poison ivy successfully poisoned, flowers planted, hanging baskets filled and hung, and 75 bags of cypress mulch later....
We've scraped and painted 4 interior windows with only 14 to go! The decks have been scrubbed and Dave is in the process right now of sealing them. On the list for today is scraping as many of the downstairs interior windows as possible and washing those blinds as well...painting them will be for another day (perhaps Monday) as Dave has an away from the house appointment for early afternoon...
This week-end we are attending a missions conference at a local church - looking forward to re-connecting with old friends and making new ones as we continue to spread the news of what Jesus is doing in Ghana.
We are reading an incredible book - "The Great Omission" by Dallas Willard. Wow. What a book...it truly is not for the faint of heart - this little book is showing me how most (dare I say "all"?) of my instinctive decisions are made with my best interests at heart - "how with this benefit me?" "will this make me happy? rich? popular?"
He makes a point early on in the book, "That brings out a profoundly significant fact. In our culture, and among Christians as well, Jesus Christ is automatically disassociated from brilliance or intellectual capacity. Not one in a thousand will spontaneously think of him in conjunction with words such as "well informed," "brilliant," or "smart.""
Wow. Guilty.
Dave and I have been reading through the Chronological Bible during our devotion time daily. I've read through this before. However, this time it has struck me over and over how the Israelites (in the modern day that would be us) over and over again did "what was right in their own eyes". I'm struck by this as all too often - maybe routinely without giving it a second thought, I am guilty over and over of doing "what was right in (my) own eyes". Here's another direct quote of this powerful book, "...practicing Jesus' words, as his apprentices, enables us to understand our lives and to see how we can interact with God's redemptive resources, ever at hand. This in turn gives us an increasing freedom from failed intentions as we learn from him how to, simply, do what we know to be right."
Mr. Willard points out most of us have not been discipled and we are not making disciples...he even mentions that we should be making disciples of our unsaved friends, neighbors and acquaintances...obviously it would look different in all types of situations but the reality is a lot of people will never come to know Jesus because they've been "turned off" by those who claim to know Him.
So, I am convicted today (again) to look for Jesus everywhere - as I sweep the floor, prepare meals, scrape windows, wash blinds, and even writing this blog...
Taking one task at a time over the course of the last few days we've "mostly" gotten the yard in shape (Dave did 95% of labor while I admired his handiwork!) And it is beautiful - most weeds gone, poison ivy successfully poisoned, flowers planted, hanging baskets filled and hung, and 75 bags of cypress mulch later....
We've scraped and painted 4 interior windows with only 14 to go! The decks have been scrubbed and Dave is in the process right now of sealing them. On the list for today is scraping as many of the downstairs interior windows as possible and washing those blinds as well...painting them will be for another day (perhaps Monday) as Dave has an away from the house appointment for early afternoon...
This week-end we are attending a missions conference at a local church - looking forward to re-connecting with old friends and making new ones as we continue to spread the news of what Jesus is doing in Ghana.
We are reading an incredible book - "The Great Omission" by Dallas Willard. Wow. What a book...it truly is not for the faint of heart - this little book is showing me how most (dare I say "all"?) of my instinctive decisions are made with my best interests at heart - "how with this benefit me?" "will this make me happy? rich? popular?"
He makes a point early on in the book, "That brings out a profoundly significant fact. In our culture, and among Christians as well, Jesus Christ is automatically disassociated from brilliance or intellectual capacity. Not one in a thousand will spontaneously think of him in conjunction with words such as "well informed," "brilliant," or "smart.""
Wow. Guilty.
Dave and I have been reading through the Chronological Bible during our devotion time daily. I've read through this before. However, this time it has struck me over and over how the Israelites (in the modern day that would be us) over and over again did "what was right in their own eyes". I'm struck by this as all too often - maybe routinely without giving it a second thought, I am guilty over and over of doing "what was right in (my) own eyes". Here's another direct quote of this powerful book, "...practicing Jesus' words, as his apprentices, enables us to understand our lives and to see how we can interact with God's redemptive resources, ever at hand. This in turn gives us an increasing freedom from failed intentions as we learn from him how to, simply, do what we know to be right."
Mr. Willard points out most of us have not been discipled and we are not making disciples...he even mentions that we should be making disciples of our unsaved friends, neighbors and acquaintances...obviously it would look different in all types of situations but the reality is a lot of people will never come to know Jesus because they've been "turned off" by those who claim to know Him.
So, I am convicted today (again) to look for Jesus everywhere - as I sweep the floor, prepare meals, scrape windows, wash blinds, and even writing this blog...
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