Meanderings From…Guess Who

I’m well on the way in making those million blunders we were told we would make while learning the language. This week I told my conversation leader that I was already a son of the King of Kings. When he asked why I replied, “Because Jesus Christ forgave my fish.” (Pescados = fish; pecados = sins)

Yes, we are on this grand, exotic, exciting adventure. A new world opens up to us in some way everyday. It’s expanding our horizons and enriching our children’s lives. The truth be known though it also has its tough times. I don’t know if it would be possible if it weren’t for the Lord graciously giving us a renewed perspective over the last few years.

At times in our Christian lives we have emphasized keeping standards and expectations with a focus on what we shouldn’t do. It was easy to be motivated by guilt and to set extra-biblical expectations for ourselves and others. Our Christian life was lived out of our best efforts not to do the wrong thing and displease God.

At other times we have emphasized positive principles and guidelines with a focus on what we should do. We were often motivated by the personal benefits we would receive for obedience. Life was lived out of our best efforts to always decide to do the right thing to please God.

What we want to emphasize is the sufficiency of Christ’s life in us with a focus on surrendering to His Lordship. We desire to be motivated to bring glory to God as we depend on Him and to live the Christian life through the control of the Holy Spirit.

Are they all the same? Are they just different approaches for different people? Perhaps... Honestly we find ourselves emphasizing them all at different times and in different ways but only the latter has been a spring of living water welling up inside us.

All of you dog lovers will be happy to know that Chelsea has clearly become a part of our family by now. She pretty much lives a dog’s life of sleeping, playing, eating and being petted. We all are attached to her and can’t imagine how we managed without a dog for so long.