Dear Ladies,
You could almost think it’s Christmas – if you didn’t look at the calendar! Yet, in another month or so, summer will make its grand, rather abrupt appearance and will be here to stay for the next 9 months! 🙂 All of you hot-weather-loving-people can book a flight over to South Africa when Fall comes and you miss the heat! We have plenty to share.
–Indian Ocean —
I cannot believe two months have passed already since the last article! There has been lots more company, a broken arm on a darling little girl, the end of a school year, family vacation, ministry answers to prayer, opportunities to invest in eternal things, and now – a new school year just around the corner! With furlough on the horizon sometime in the Spring of 2012, we will be starting up early in hopes of not getting too far behind. Mostly everyone is excited about school. 🙂
Thank you LVBC for loving your missionaries and supporting them so. Thank you Priscilla Ladies for keeping in touch. I love you all!
Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. I spent some time thinking on this verse recently. What a rich verse!
- It’s a GOOD work. Sometimes, we don’t think it’s good – so we take over the work so it’s what good seems to us. No matter what – we can be confident in this. It is a good work.
- It’s HIS work. He’ll do it. We just need to take our hands off. Even when it doesn’t seem right – the only thing that will thwart it is us insisting it’s our work, by bringing ‘good’ OUR way thus not letting Him have His way.
- HE which began … it’s rooted in our view of God’s goodness & wisdom. His power & faithfulness. We can trust what He’s doing in our life because He is wise. He is able. He is faithful. He is good. He will never pull away. He will never treat us according to our sin, because there is now no condemnation to those in Christ. He is GRACE & MERCY.
- IN YOU… Sometimes we read the REVERSED version which reads, He which began a good work around you. Sometimes we look at our circumstances SO much – and surmise God has stopped working – or that it no longer seems good. So we put on our “GOOD” gloves and get to work making it all good. He’s concerned about the ‘in you’. He’ll take care of the ‘around’ you. He’s always at work.
- He’ll PERFORM it…. That is not at all passive chance or coincidence. Take comfort that He promises to intentionally perform good things in our life until we are with the Lord. We must choose to believe that and walk by faith not by how things look.
The story of Joseph is amazing that he could go through such a dysfunctional family life and endure such mistreatment and yet have a stable, right perspective. He testified himself that he knew that God intended it for good. Joseph was an example of living in the reality of Who God is, not in the false reality of how it seems.
Love, Kristin Hammett
