Community & The Beautiful Fight

Okay, so I have been CrAvInG...bratwurst! I haven't had one since last summer sometime when we lived in North Carolina! We don't have a grill and it's also been way too cold to enjoy grilling outside--now some would argue that we could've made them on the stove in the house...we've tried that before and they just didn't taste the same and talk about a greasy mess on the stove and surrounding area! hehe... Well, Tuesday turned out to be a gorgeous day and my friend found out about this craving so she bought some brats and invited us over to grill with them!! Let me tell you, that brat was sooo good!! All those juices and flavor flooded my mouth and I felt that craving satisfied, lol...I know that sounds a little extreme, but when you wait and wait for something, it makes it taste that much better!

How glorious it is to live in community with each other, encouraging each other in life's daily demands and our Christian walk.

Here are the gals enjoyin the sunshine

Tuesday also marked the end of the women's bible study I had been attending at College Park. We did a study through the book, The Beautiful Fight (now known as Holy Available), by Gary Thomas. This whole book is really about surrendering more and more of ourselves to the Lord so that we are available to carry out His divine purposes to BRING HIM GLORY! It's about not settling in our Christian walk. This book focuses more on the do's than the don'ts... Gary Thomas does a wonderful job showing that we are saved by GRACE alone but also have a responsibility to live our lives to the Lord because He bought us with a price. I think I am going to read this book again soon, to really try and soak in what it says. I like this book because it is hard to know what the Christian life looks like and how we are to live out our faith, right here right now. I know we all sometimes feel like, well I haven't been called to full time "mission work, evangelism, etc..." but it focuses on how our every actoin can be in His service.

He had a quote by Henry Drummond that says, "No man can do more with his life than the will of God--that though we may never be famous or powerful, or called to heroic suffering or acts of self-denial which will vibrate through history: that though we are neither intended to be apostles nor missionaries nor martyrs, but to be common people living in common houses, spending the day in common offices or common kitchens, yet doing the will of God there, we shall do as much as apostle or missionary or martyr -- seeing that they can do no more than do God's will where they are, even as we can do as much where we are -- and asnwer the end our life as truly , faithfully, and triumphantly, as they."

Here are a few quotes from the book that I like.

"Our greatest foe is what we most often seek--unencumbered lives and unbroken leisure, lives free from any care or concern." Gary Thomas

"God is the agent of change, but we have a responsibility to surrender ourselves to God's change--a real responsibility to respond to the leading and pressure of God's Spirit." GT

"Our "private" battles have a very public effect, for what we cultivate in secret shapes the world we live in." ---GT

"Transformation is never about winning His favor but rather revealing his presence." GT

I'm so thankful the Lord's not finished with me or you yet! and that Lord willing, we won't look the same a year from now or 10 years from now! Wherever you are in this beautiful fight, I encourage you to surrender yourself once again to His calling on our life in the daily things and to SEEK Him.