We are getting close to leaving. Like almost 90% funded close (praise Jesus and Hallelujah!).

I am getting really excited about going. I find myself looking at IKEA and apartment websites almost daily. I’m already thinking of color schemes for our new home.

There is a lot of stuff that comes with “getting closer”. There is the endless amount of paperwork we have been preparing for our VISA appointment next week. There is going through boxes of stuff that we thought we could take with us but now we realize we were just deceiving ourselves. There is packing and repacking and packing and repacking.

And there are goodbyes, which will start very soon.

Four years ago I thought I was finished with all this…with Italy, at least with living there, with packing up my life, with endless amounts of paperwork. I envisioned a life in Winston-Salem. One with close friends a short car ride away. One with years of pictures of Lily and her two best friends, Leah and Ava. One where the kids went to an arts-based school in downtown. One surrounded on Sundays by good friends over good food. One with my kids playing in the backyard while I worked in the garden. I envisioned lots of things. But all of these things, every single one, I could do on my own, in my own strength.

But moving…I can’t do that on my own if I tried. You see, it is just too difficult. Oh sure, I can pack the boxes and organize yard sales. But the hard things, the goodbyes, the adjusting to a different culture, functioning in a language that is not my first, helping my children transition while I myself am transitioning…I just can’t do those things on my own. And although this was not my plan, it is one that draws me closer to Jesus and makes me trust and rely on His strength.

My weaknesses are many and great. My language is decent but limited. I can go buy milk but I can’t crack a joke. And while you might not think that is a big deal, please believe me when I tell you it is a huge deal. When all you can do is buy milk, you lose a little bit of yourself. So while I will be able to function in society it will take years before I am able to be completely myself. As a natural introvert my social skills in a foreign setting become almost non-existent for the first couple of months. It takes me longer to become comfortable and to open up to people than in does in my own culture and language. My stress level will be through the roof. When we arrive we have to find an apartment and furnish it, which means countless trips to IKEA. We have to begin our residency permit within the first week of arriving. Those things alone with two kids in tow is enough to make me stressed as I write this.

But lucky for me, I don’t have to rely on myself.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you; for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 1 Corinthians 12:9

I am so very, very weak. I can not get on that plane without the ever-strong arm of God holding me up, wiping away every tear as I say goodbye. I can not overcome the language and social barriers without God to give me endurance and confidence while I am learning more Italian and getting to know my new neighbors. I can not be free of stress and anxiety with all the things that will have to happen when our feet hit Italian soil without the God of peace invading my soul.

So I have lots of weaknesses, many more than are listed above. But my God does not have one single weakness. Only strength. And if in my weaknesses God is made great, then I pray I am weaker still so that He might even better demonstrate His greatness, sufficiency, and strength through me.

The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thank to him. Psalm 28: 7

Three weeks ago I decided to do something I don’t normally do. Some of you will find this ironic (I’m speaking specifically to Vince Rice and Erin Etheridge) since I have a blog on which I write about personal things, but I am somewhat reserved in what I put out “there”. When it comes to asking people to pray for me via Facebook or the blog…I don’t. I keep that to myself or maybe a few friends.

However, on January 26, I felt inclined…overtaken, really, by some crazy desire to ask people in a Facebook group we have to pray for something big…something huge…something we’ve been praying about since last May. This is what I posted:

Ok, everyone…here’s the situation on the house. We have had two different people express interest, however no offers have been made. I know many of you are praying about the house for us, but I would like to ask you to please remember to pray this week with us. We need the house sold now more than ever because 1) we are getting close to meeting our support goal and 2) our mortgage went up a good bit. Will you please join us this week to ask God to move on our behalf and send us an offer? Thanks.

Back up a few days to Friday, January 23. Sitting in her office, surrounded by the busyness of the GCM office, the international coordinator, Cori, was speaking with our coach, Keva, about our case. The topic of discussion? What needed to happen in order for the “ok” to given to the Davidson’s to move ahead with their VISA paperwork? It was decided that there were two things: get close to 80% funded and get an offer on the house. They begin praying for both of these things to happen quickly. I had no idea this conversation had occurred until Wednesday, January 28.

Before I move on, let’s recap quickly…

Friday – Cori and Keva begin praying for the house to sell and for us to reach 80%.

Monday – I put out a Facebook post asked people to pray for an offer on the house to come in that week.

On Tuesday, January 27, our realtor called to tell us a couple had made an offer on the house. On Wednesday morning, we accepted a final offer from them.

It blows my mind at how God works. I sit at His feet this morning in awe and wonder. His timing is perfect, flawless, intentional.

We were depending on the house selling for a considerable amount more than what we bought it at in order to use that money towards start up cost when we move. We’ve been banking on it. Trusting in it. As we were going back and forth with the potential buyers we looked at the numbers and realized that God had provided our start up cost through other means…through people giving to our ministry and family with one time gifts. I felt silly having put my trust in a house versus in God. I was depending on the profit from the house, when I should have been depending on Him. In allowing our house to sell for what it has, He brought us back to dependence on Him, showing us that He has already provided amply for what we will need when we move.

He is the God who hears and answers.

He is the God who moves in greater and mightier ways than I will ever know or understand.

This is a special week. Paul turns 34 this week. Yep. 34. Let’s not focus on that though. It’s only a number, right? I keep telling myself that because in a few months it’s my turn.

But Paul’s birthday is not the main reason this is a special week. This week also marks the day when Paul decided that he desperately needed Jesus in his life. It was 16 years ago. He was just a few days shy of his 18th birthday. And his life changed…forever.

He wrote this today on facebook:

Today is a pretty special day for me. 16 years ago today I gave my life to Christ. While I knew I was making the right decision for eternity sake then, I had no idea of the everyday joys that God had in store for the future. I’m so grateful for the abundant grace of God, that not only saves me, but sanctifies me everyday, through faith. I’ve been rescued from sin, and not just from certain temptations, but rescued of sin’s power in my life in so many ways. I’ve been redeemed. Bought with the price of a life given to satisfy the wrath of Holy God. Jesus’ life is now my life. And what a life it’s been these last 16 years!

Whenever I hear or read his story I can’t help but tear up. For some reason it just overwhelms me. It is always incredible to hear stories of life change, however when it is your best friend, your soul mate, the person you spend your every moment with, it becomes something different.

You see, when I hear or read his story I think about where I’d be if that day had not happened. To be quite honest, it’s too scary to even think about too long.

Paul had several friends invite him to church and tell him the incredible news that is wrapped up in Jesus. I am eternally grateful to them, especially Amanda Hood, Scott Wright and Ronnie Cathey. To Amanda for living out the gospel in front of him and to Scott and Ronnie for discipling him. Not only did they and so many others play a part in his life change, but they changed mine as well. My life was changed that day 16 years ago when Paul accepted Christ, I just didn’t know it yet.

I was a couple hundred miles away, wrapped up in my on world. I was probably worried about things that didn’t really matter then, much less now. But one state over, the man who would steal my heart 6 years later was seeing his need for a Savior. Oh, blessed day.

I hope you see through Paul’s story the impact that one person’s life can have on another. If Amanda and Paul’s other friends had not shared Jesus with him who know if he would have ever made that crucial decision. If Ronnie and Scott had not discipled him his faith might not have increased and matured. If one or more of these people had not acted as they did, both of our lives would have been very different.

It is so very important that we live out our faith everyday. That we speak the words that have the ability to change lives, not because we speak them but because of the power of the Holy Spirit. Our actions or lack thereof impact so many people. Some we may never even know about.

Thank you. Thank you to everyone who cared enough about my husband to share Jesus with him. I am indebted to you.

We are so close. Close enough that I can smell the pizza baking in the wood-fire oven.

I am so excited to let you know that we are $2,000.00 away from our monthly goal. So, if 20 of you reading this decided to give $100 a month, then we could pack our bags tomorrow – or as soon as we get our VISAs.

It’s becoming real, and the closer we get the more real it becomes. We are actually going to move back to the land flowing with olive oil and pasta sauce. That’s my milk and honey, folks.

It’s been such a long road but there is a light at the end of it now. And it comes from the vastness that is IKEA, where we will spend much of our time picking out furniture to take home and put together. But who cares how many mind-numbing hours we spend in that maze of a store or days we spend putting furniture together? We will be home. Finally. And that is worth all the trips to IKEA I will have to make in the near future.

If you would like to be a part of helping us get back to Italy so we can begin the incredible journey before us, click on the donate tab, which will tell you how you can get involved.

In John 4:1-39 Jesus strikes up a conversation with a woman…at a well…in Samaria. It doesn’t get much more unseemly than that folks. Despite the unseemliness of it all, the conversation is a revealing one. So, takes a few moments to read John 4:1-39. I will, like always, sing a song while you read.

It was twenty years ago today,
Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play
They’ve been going in and out of style
But they’re guaranteed to raise a smile.
So may I introduce to you
The act you’ve known for all these years,
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
We’re Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,
We hope you will enjoy the show,
We’re Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,
Sit back and let the evening go.

Why was this meeting so unseemly? Politically Samaria was part of the Roman province of Judea in Jesus’ day. Nevertheless culturally there were ancient barriers that divided the residents of Samaria from the Jews who lived in Galilee and southern Judea that go back to the Old Testament when the Kingdom of Israel was divided into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. After the Assyrians captured the city of Samaria, which was in the Northern Kingdom they deported some of its citizens and imported foreigners who intermarried with the remaining Israelites. Most of these foreigners continued to worship their pagan gods (2 Kings 17—18). The Jews of the Southern Kingdom regarded the residents of Samaria as racial half-breeds and religious compromisers. There is also the issue of Jesus speaking with a woman…which was just not done. Not only was she a woman but she was a woman of ill-repute. She was not a prostitute, but if you look back at the verses you just read you’ll see that 1) she was collecting her water at noon, which is an activity usually done in the morning. So we can assume the other women did not like her OR that she was trying to avoid people because of her situation OR both and 2) she had been married five times and the man she was currently living with was not her husband. She might as well have had a big ole scarlett A attached to her.

So this is where Jesus is…a town named Sychar in Samaria, a place that was not overly-friendly to Jews and with whom Jews were not overly-friendly, talking to a woman who tries to avoid others because of the situation she has placed herself into.

So the conversation begins and we see Jesus using the situation he is in to tell her the gospel, to reveal himself to her. And they go back and forth, back and forth. Until finally at the end of the conversation she brings up the Messiah and he reveals to her that he is in fact the Messiah.

When the disciples arrive at the well, the woman runs back into town telling everyone she sees about what she has just experienced.

There are two things I want to point out about this woman. One, is something we have already stated, she heard and believed. Did she see Jesus? Well, yes. But she did not know with whom she was speaking until he told her. She listened to what he was telling her. She interacted with him, and we find by the end of the conversation that she believes what she has heard. Remember from Romans 10 that faith comes from hearing.  What did she do with her newfound belief?

This is where I got really excited about this passage.

She told people. Faith is not what we have created it to be, which is a personal, keep-it-to-myself kind of thing. Not at all.

¹⁴ How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?^[c] And how are they to hear without someone preaching?         Romans 10:14

Faith comes from hearing and if we don’t tell then how will people hear? There has to be a voice telling people about what Jesus has done.

John 4:39 says, “Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.”

But, what I find more exciting, is found in verse 41. It says, “And many more believed because of his word .They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Lord.'”

The people believed at first because of the woman’s testimony. Because of that testimony they went to hear for themselves. They had an encounter with Jesus that led the to a faith apart from what the woman had told them. The sharing of our faith introduces people to Jesus but it is the actual encounter with him that brings about faith and salvation. However, if we keep our mouths closed tight then how are people to hear his name?

“So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” James 2:17

“For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.” James 2:26

Action should follow faith. Action is the overflow of the love of Christ that lives in us by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10

What Paul is telling us in Ephesians is that our salvation is not of ourselves. We can DO nothing to attain it. It is through faith by grace that salvation comes. However, we are created to do good works. Why? Jesus tells in Matthew 5 to “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Our good works point people to God. You cannot say you have faith in God and then do nothing, for that is to not have a true faith. A real faith is compelled to DO something with it. To tell others, to help others, to act in obedience. We have deceived ourselves into thinking that faith is going to church and reading our bible. Faith is acting in obedience to the Word of God. Faith is believing the impossible is possible through Jesus. Faith is doing what others think is absolutely crazy because you know it is what God has called you to do. We are to put our faith into action, otherwise what is the point in having it?

The second woman I focused on during the conference was the woman who had a bleeding disorder and touched Jesus’ cloak. Like yesterday, I encourage you to take a moment and read the text, which can be found in Mark 5:24-34.

Again, I’ll wait and sing a song while you read.

There she was just a walking’ down the street. Singin’ do-wa-diddy-diddy-dum-diddy-do.

Done?

What struck me when I read this while studying was that the woman heard and then believed. She didn’t see and then believe. She heard and believed. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Romans 10:17 states, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ”. So how does this woman differ from Martha? She didn’t believe that Jesus could heal from far away or that he could raise the dead. How is that different from the woman thinking she had to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment to be healed instead of just believing he could do it from afar? The faith of Martha was limited by what she believed he could or couldn’t do. However the woman believed that if she just touched his cloak she would be healed. In her mind he didn’t even have to know it had happened, much less look at her or speak to her. Just a small touch of the clothes he wore would cure her. And so it did.

Her belief was genuine and sincere. Do we believe that God can do all things? That nothing is impossible for Him?  So many times we ask God to do something and then believe He can instead of just believing in Him, that He will do what he says, that His promises are true, and that He is worthy of our faith to be put in Him. I’m not saying that God will heal every person if our faith is put in the right place, but our faith must be rightly placed if we are to see God move. We don’t have faith in him and follow him because of what we see him doing. We have faith in him and follow him because of who he is. Because he is worthy of our faith and worthy to be followed.

We have been asked numerous times why we are going back to Italy. For me, it is this: I believe that God will bring the nations to Himself and that is our job to get His name to those nations. I believe that He loves Italians and I believe that he can bring a nation – that was once alive with the Holy Spirit – back to Himself in such a mighty and powerful way that the heavens will rejoice and the world will be forever changed. Because I believe that, I am going. My faith in Him and His purpose is why I am going back.

Our faith tells us what we believe about God. This woman…her faith tells us she believed Jesus was a man who could heal, and he did. She acted out her faith by following him in a crowd and touching him. She acted. She lived out her faith. A little Old Testament history needs to be interjected so we can fully understand the magnitude of what she is doing. If a woman, under the Law, had a bleeding disorder she was to be isolated. So the fact that she has put herself in a position to be surrounded by people is a big deal. She stepped out in faith. The question now is how are we living out our faith? What does the way we live our lives say about what we believe about Jesus? Do we step out, knowing the way is murky at best, and that we will be ridiculed and questioned, but counting the costs worth it? Or do we stay where it is safe and easy and comfortable, never fully trusting in the promises of God?

But why did the power of Jesus not go through every other person who was crowded among him? AFter he asks WHo touched him, the disciples, in my imagination, look at him incredulously asking What are you talking about man? Do you not see all the people around you? When I read this story now I get this image in my mind of Naples at Christmas.  There is a street called Scapanapoli, which is as straight as an arrow and very, very long. It is also really narrow. One of the perpendicular streets that runs into it is called Christmas Alley because they sell nativities, which Naples is famous for. So at Christmas time those two streets are just not passable. i know this because the first time my in-laws came to visit we wanted to show them the city and Spaccanapoli was one of those things. We head down there and you can see from the top of the street that it looks sort of crowded. Then we get into the thick of it and you could not move hardly and the closer we got to Christmas Alley the worse it was. I think at one point we were all holding hands in a single file so we wouldn’t lose one another. There were people pressing from all sides. I’ve never been a claustrophobic person, but that day I think all four of us were. It took I think about two hours to go three quarters of a mile, if that. But I’m not really good with measuring distance so it could be much longer or much shorter than three quarters of a mile, but it sounds good so let’s go with it. When we landed on the other side and disembarked from the throng of people the first thing we all did was take a giant breath. Paul and I never went back down there during November or December.

I imagine the scene around Jesus was something like that. And yet he asked “Who touched me?”

Now the woman knew what had happened to her and we can infer a little of her character at this point. Since she came forward and admitted to the whole thing we can safely assume she was an honest woman. And what does she receive for her honesty? I think with tenderness and caring he looks at the woman and calls her Daughter. Daughter is a term of endearment and family. I dont’ go around calling random children “Daughter”. So who is she a daughter to? Jesus? Then who does that make Jesus? He has just again, very subtlety, equated himself with God the Father. I had never noticed it before, but it an important part of the story for he is revealing his deity to this woman and to us.

This is the only place recorded where Jesus calls someone daughter. Her faith had brought her into his spiritual family. Her faith expressed belief that Jesus could heal her and hope that he would. Daughter, he says, your faith has made you well. To show her he is not angry he tells her to go in peace. Remember she had come in fear and trembling. She had no idea what he was going to say to her. By telling her to go in peace he’s telling her to not be afraid. But why emphasize that her faith had healed her? Jesus didn’t want her to think it was simply her touching his cloak that had healed her. Her faith is what had healed her. And Jesus wanted her to understand that. This woman was healed because she stepped out in faith – because she believed.

I have had to ask myself what does the way I am living my life say about what I believe about Jesus. It’s hard to look in the mirror and ask hard questions. It’s even harder to answer them honestly.

I was asked recently to speak at a women’s conference at Simsboro Baptist Church in Louisiana. The topic I was given was “The Women in Jesus’ Life”. At first, I really didn’t know what to do with it. There’s just not a whole lot of details about any of the women Jesus encountered, whether they were family, friends or strangers.

So, I prayed.

A lot.

And the one thing that kept coming back over and over was the word “Faith”. As I read about the different women Jesus encountered I realized that was the thing they had in common. So, the topic of the conference changed from “The Women in Jesus’ Life” to “The Faith of the Women in Jesus’ life”.

I though I’d share what I learned during the process of studying and writing on this subject. It’s pretty long, so I’ll break it down into three different posts. Today is about Martha and Mary.

In John 10 Jesus is teaching in Jerusalem that he and God the Father are one. Folks really didn’t like hearing this so they tried to stone him, and as a result Jesus promptly left the region with his disciples.

Now, I could spend a few paragraphs recapping what happened, but frankly, I just don’t want to. It’s too much typing. Also, as a way to encourage you to pick up a Bible or open up an app on your phone or google “Bible” I’ll take a short break so you can read it yourself. Find John 11. Read through verse 44.

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o. B-I-N-G-O. B-I-N-G-O. B-I-N-G-O. And Bingo was his name-o.

Done?

Great!

When Martha’s note reaches him, Jesus would have had a several day journey to get back to Judea. In fact, when Jesus arrived in Bethany Lazarus had been in the grave for four days. What Jesus encountered upon his arrival was a limited faith, both from Martha and Mary. In verses 21 and 32 Martha and Mary address him the same way. Not with, “Thank you for coming” or “I’m so glad to see you” but with blame, accusation, and with what we we discover is a limited faith. They both say, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Martha goes on as if to downplay the accusation by saying, “But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Their first reaction is to blame Jesus, the one they KNOW could have saved Lazarus if he had chosen to do so. But aren’t we so much like them? We blame the one who could save. We blame the one who could heal. We blame the one who can do anything he so chooses to do. Why? Why did they and we do that?

I think it is human nature to need someone to blame when things go wrong. Sometimes that person is ourselves, but more times than not it is someone else. It has to be someone’s fault after all, doesn’t it? Why else would it happen?  Someone had to cause it. I don’t know about you, but I tend to blame those closest to me, which usually means my husband. When it is something big, we tend to blame God. Maybe blame is too harsh a word though. Maybe it’s just that we accuse God of NOT acting when He could have. That’s what Martha and Mary did. They blamed Jesus for NOT acting when he could have. You might be asking, “But they believed he could have saved Lazarus if only he had come sooner, right?” The answer is yes. But they failed to believe that Jesus could have saved him from the other side of Judea and that he could save him even from death itself. They didn’t yet understand that Jesus was the savior of death itself. This is limited faith.

Limited faith is controlled by circumstances, and motivated by fear. Martha and Mary were controlled by their circumstance, which was the death of their brother. Their grief, their pain, their suffering had allowed them to forget what they knew to be true. They were lost in the grief they were experiencing. How many times do we allow our circumstances to control our actions, our reactions, our words? We listen to feelings and what is going on around us even though those things will lie to us. Our feelings or emotions are not trustworthy. That’s why when I was in high school telling my youth minister how much I loved this guy I was dating he looked at me and said, “Your emotions cannot always be trusted. You have to think.” He was right. A couple of months later I no longer “loved” that boyfriend and we broke up in the hallway of our high school. My anger will tell me to yell at Paul – to lash out and hurt him – and I could listen to it and have on occasion, but where does it get me? No where good is where it gets me. So we have these two sisters, going through a terrible ordeal, and they lash out at the one person who loves them more than they know. Instead of holding fast to truth, they give in to their emotions and look for someone to blame. A firm faith is complete obedience to the Word of God disregarding circumstance or consequences. It is trusting when it is difficult, when the world says to turn away. A firm faith is just that…firm in the face of every obstacle.

Let’s go back to Jesus and Martha. Have you ever just gone off on a tirade and the person on the other end of it tried to comfort you after it was all said and done?  I wonder if in verse 23 when Jesus says to her, “Your brother will rise again” he was trying to comfort her? They begin a discourse about resurrection, in which Jesus reveals he is the resurrection and the life. Martha doesn’t say she believes that whoever believes in Jesus, though he die, yet shall he live. She believes that Jesus is was the Christ, the Son of God. Her faith was rightly placed in that she believed Jesus was the Son of God but it was limited in what he could do.

We see this again after the group reach the tomb of Lazarus in verse 38. Jesus instructs the stone laying against the tomb to be moved. Martha responds, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Other versions say, “Lord by this time he stinketh” It makes me laugh every time I see it written that way for some reason.                                                 At this point Jesus chastises her just a little bit. He says, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” You can almost see Martha cringing because he’s correcting her in front of a lot of people. In a matter of what was probably minutes she had forgotten what Jesus had told her.

When things get tough, we forget lessons we just learned, things Jesus taught us, scripture we just read that morning. I think one of the life lessons I am trying to learn is to call on Him first. My tendency is to call a friend or wait on pins and needles for a chance to talk to Paul about it. I will go over names in my head until I think I have found the right person to talk to about whatever is going on at the time. Afterwards, I almost always ask myself, “Why didn’t you just stop and spend some time with Jesus and talk to him about it?” Ultimately, I know that’s where I am going to end up anyway, so why not start there – with the one who actually has a solution instead of just sympathy? And this is my lesson that I forget over and over, just as Martha had just heard Jesus tell her that Lazarus would not remain dead and in the matter of a few minutes had forgotten.

Here’s it all in a nutshell. How I react during difficult times will reveal what I believe about God. I had to ask myself if, during difficult times, does my faith waver or is it steadfast?

Tomorrow, I’ll post what I learned about the second woman I studied.

There’s been adventure…

some that involves water.

There have been nature documentaries.

There’s been lions and tigers and bears, Oh my! (and puppies and kitties and cheetahs, too)

There’s been a few Hallmark Specials…..

filled with indescribable sweetness.

There has been a LOT of DRAMA…

Some incredible action…

The occasional scary feature film…

And, of course, there has been comedy.

Romans 1:5 “Through whom (Jesus Christ our Lord) we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.”

We are given grace – receiving that which we do not deserve and not receiving what we do deserve – so that we may spread his name among the nations. Why? “For the sake of his name.” What does that mean? It means for his glory. We receive grace so that all the nations may know him, receive him, have faith in him so they might glorify him.

But how can the nations be brought to an “obedience of faith” if they do not hear about the God in whom they can trust, in whom they can have faith? The apostle Paul asked this same question in Romans.  “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”

From the beginning to the end of scripture this is what we see – this is the purpose of creation – to point to God Almighty. And time after time, we see failure. Failure to understand the importance of the task given to God’s people. They were chosen by Him so that others may come to know Him. We fail to understand it still. Our lives point to everything but God so often, and as a result we fail to live lives that point people to Jesus. Why should our lives point to Him? First, because He is worthy of it. Second, our lives should point to him because God wants all the nations to know the One who made them, to know they are worthy in His eyes to be saved from a life of meaninglessness to a life of fullness. They need to know they matter.

This is accomplished through the church. Yes, the church. The church is the means through which God has chosen to accomplish His redemptive mission to the world He created and loves. We are saved by grace through faith not just for ourselves so we can wave a flag bearing the words “I’m Saved” or “Heaven Bound” on it, but so we can open our mouths and live our lives in such a way that others can know the mighty awesomeness of the God who gives them breath every single moment of every single day.

We are so selfish with grace. We fail to see its greatness, its purpose, and its beauty. We receive this wonderful gift of grace as we put faith in God and then we think little more about it. We may become emotional when we sing a particular hymn or praise song or when we hear a sermon which makes us reflect on grace for thirty minutes, but do we ever see it as a means to an end? The end being the return of Christ. If we are saved by grace through faith and we are given grace so that in turn all the nations can be led to obedience in faith and we know Christ will only return when every tribe, tongue, and nation has heard his name proclaimed then it only makes sense that grace is not only the means through which we are saved but also gives us a purpose and task in order to accomplish the mission God has given His church with the power of His Spirit, which is to make all things new, restoring His perfect creation and in turn bringing glory to His name.

So the question remains…what am I…what are you…doing with the grace we have been given?

MacKenzie

Grief is as much a part of life as death and taxes. It will rear its head to every person on the planet in some form. Grief is a necessary emotion as we move through different situations that life brings us. We mostly associate grief with death, but that is not the only time it comes to life. 

Since the last part of May, Paul and I have been grieving. Nobody died. Nobody called and told us they are diagnosed with a terminal illness. We grieved because we knew what was coming in the months following our decision to return to Italy. It wasn’t getting rid of most of our things that made us grieve. Stuff can be replaced. No, that wasn’t it. What grieved us was knowing that we would say goodbye to people we loved…again. Except this time, there were more people on the list of goodbyes. I know that some of you reading this are sad at our leaving, but please keep in mind, that you have to say goodbye to four people while we have to say goodbye to everyone we know. That’s a cause for grieving. 

There were times I would sit on the couch, thinking about the many conversations I have had with good friends on that couch, and cry. There were other times while I was cooking I would think about how few meals I had left to share with people I care for deeply. And I cried. 

We grieved the things the kids would not have when we moved. We grieved over the kids saying bye to their friends. We grieved not being a part of Sundays at REVO. We grieved giving up our cat. We grieved the last holiday season we would spend with our families for a while. 

We grieved so very deeply. In some ways, we still do.

But there is such a thing as “good” grief.

We have been given the opportunity to be part of the greatest calling one can be given. We get to share the love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness of God to people in a place that has no idea what those concepts truly mean. This is a good thing. At times, I am overwhelmed that I get to be a part of it. After all, the God of the universe doesn’t need me to accomplish His mission, but He has chosen and asked me to be a part of it. This renders me speechless and makes me ask, “How could NOT go?”

So while we walk through this process, one that is at times painful and sad, we look on towards the goal of what Christ has called us to do and excitement begins to course through our veins. And it makes the grieving good. 

MacKenzie