More of the Same

As I was thinking about this blog post and what I wanted to write about, or what I should write about, I realized that our life right now, on the outside, is pretty much the same as it has been for the past two years.

Our kids are growing...

 And are still cuter than ever!

 

Even in our Senior semester we have a lot of homework, which requires more effort when you're so close to the end.

 



 We are still enjoying having our friends over for supper and the occasional birthday party.

Our time spent with our small group studying Green Letters continues to be a real blessing to us. We decided to share a "Dare to Be Great" one Friday night after supper.

The missionaries here, whether their our teachers, deans, or men on PPD who continually fix things in our apartment, continue to encourage us and press us on in our walks with the Lord.

All these things are things that I've blogged about in the past. Making it appear on the surface that life has been the same for our two years here NTBI. But praise the Lord is it not! All of these things listed above are now done with a better understanding of God's word. Making it more clear in how we should be walking in our relationship with the Lord and then how that pours into other relationships in our lives.

I'll give you one example.... Last year we had many couples over for supper because I thought it was the right thing to do. We were always feeding someone or having some type of gathering. This year, well more like since I took Romans, we still have people over but my heart is different about it. As I understand more about walking in the spirit, I can begin to host people in my home in a way that brings glory to God, not to myself. I can begin to meet the needs of those walking through my door instead of wondering what praises people may be thinking of me for always having people over. At times, it can still be tiring having people over for supper, but it's a different kind of tired than last year. I now understand that God does desire for me to do these things but he wants me to be walking in the Spirit as I do them.

Please hear my heart that these things are written out of a gratefulness for the understand of the word that God has given me me. I now understand that anything I try to do on my own, apart from the Spirit, may not fail but has no value to my heavenly Father.

I'm thankful that as our lives look the same in the day to day that God isn't content to leave us where we are and is still working mightily in our lives to make us more like his Son.

In two weeks we will be getting a break from this "sameness." Our spring break is the week before Easter. We'll be traveling home to Bluffton for that time. We'd love to visit with you while we're home. As we move on in our next step of faith, we will leave the "sameness" of NTBI and start new at the Missionary Training Center in Missouri. We'd love to share about that or just have you over for cookies and coffee. So if you have a free night let us know. We do love to visit with you and know what God has been doing in your "sameness".