Baby A . . . Is a Boy!

Last week, one of the ladies in my discipleship group gave me a gift. It was a very small-sized salwar kameez (Pakistani shirt and pants).



She said, "It's for your grandson! When you go in December for his birth, tell your daughter and son-in-law it's a gift from us."



I said, "Thank you! But, we don't know yet if it's a boy or girl." She just smiled and said, "It's a boy."



Yesterday we got the news from Jim and Michelle. The ultrasound shows it's a boy.

We would have been totally fine with either a boy or a girl. But knowing Baby A's gender just brings us one step closer to knowing him, and our excitement is growing.

I think I am going to like being a grandma.

Treasuring Jesus

This morning, in our Friday Family Time at IGSL we listened to a video sermon by John Piper called "Don't Waste Your Life". I love John Piper -- we only had time to listen to part of the message, and I was disappointed when it ended. The part that we listened to was about Philippians 1:20, and he challenged us to make Christ look great by the way we live our lives, or by the way we die. I think "making Christ look great" is an excellent way to express "glorifying God". He pointed out that our choices, and the risks we are willing to take, will show how much we treasure Jesus above all else.

When Family Time was over, and I got back to my office, I received a phone call from one of our IGSL graduates who is a pastor in Nepal. The church in Nepal has gone through trying times in the past few months because of Hindu extremists who are trying to intimidate believers. Some believers have already been killed, and many church leaders have received letters and phone calls threatening that they will be next if they don't cancel their worship services. This dear brother told me, "We were targeted yesterday by the group. They are threatening us, but we've already made up our minds that we won't give in. So, please just pray for my family." We chatted for a few more minutes and hung up.

I sat there staring at the computer screen in front of me. "Dear Jesus," I thought, "my brother truly treasures You above all else." I did not expect the sermon I had just heard to be illustrated so profoundly within the hour.

Just Thinking . . .

I've been asking myself lately, what do I love to do? Many parts of my job include things I don't love. Meetings. Deadlines. Budgets. Yuk. Hate it.

The parts I love include listening to people, encouraging people, and sometimes even rebuking people. I realize I am particularly motivated if they are the type of people who are passionate about proclaiming God's name to the ends of the earth.

The first type of person: When I sense that someone is willing to pour out his/her life for the glory of God, for the spread of His kingdom, then I will do whatever I can to help that person succeed. I can be very patient, even in extremely trying circumstances.

For the past year or two, I have been very motivated as I have helped some students from unreached people groups to learn English so they can be equipped to reach their people. I have invested hundreds of hours, probably thousands of hours in this task. And I thought it was great fun, not work. They were diligently equipping themselves to be more effective for their King and I wanted to diligently help them.

For the past several years, I've also been discipling students and staff who want to invest their lives for God's glory. If I sense that someone is "all out" for God's glory, then I want to go "all out" to help them while they are with us at IGSL.

I also love to go to remote places to visit them after they graduate, stay online late at night to chat with them and encourage them, connect them with others who can help them and spend time in earnest prayer for them. I love, love, love doing that!

The second type of person: It's much harder for me to invest in people who seem to be more concerned with being comfortable in life. There are a lot of those people around! But I am learning that God can use me to motivate the second type to become the first type. I've seen it happen. And it's thrilling when it does! But it really takes eyes of faith for me to see the potential in those people.

It takes even greater eyes of faith to see that meetings, budgets and deadlines can also be part of the bigger task of helping more people to be "all out" for God's glory. I really need God's help to see things through His eyes.

Just thinking . . .