Tonight, members of Grace Bible will meet to discuss yet another trip to the Navajo Reservation in the high plains desert of New Mexico. I love the partnership we share with Pine Hill Church and our Navajo brothers and sisters in Christ. Here’s a video of last year’s trip…
Author: roylayman
What Does It Mean for a Man to Lead His Home?
“One of the things that makes fatherhood difficult…is the almost complete collapse of a sense of authority…”
Hardwired For Awe…
Contentment Killers….
Paul told Timothy …godliness with contentment is great gain…(1Tim6:6) Do you know what it means to be content? Many people to day are far from content. They’re anxious, competitive, worried, jealous, covetous, and exhausted, but never content. Check out this great post by Darrin Patrick that points out 6 Assassins of a Man’s Contentment.
You have enemies as you try to live as a content man. Most of the time we think the enemies are from without—people around us and circumstances upon us. But the true enemies of contentment are within in us, which is where contentment is either fed or starved.
At the heart of contentment is an embrace of the present and a willingness to enjoy the good things we have right now. These enemies distract us from the present and prompt us to either idolize or demonize our past and future. We either worship or hate the past or future, but doing so makes it impossible to embrace the glory of the contented life.
The following 6 assassins are at work within you to destroy your enjoyment of the life God has given you…
1. Regret
Sometimes we should regret things. If we make bad decisions, if we hurt other people, we need to acknowledge our mistakes and feel their weight. But some men allow their regrets to turn into a cancer of self-loathing that undermines their ability to make balanced and healthy stories out of their lives.
2. Nostalgia
In the words of Don Draper, nostalgia is “delicate, but potent. It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone.” It recalls to mind the successes and joys of the past, while suffocating our ability to enjoy the present. Our lives can never escape the unrealistic burden of having to measure where we are now according to a standard set a year or decade ago.
3. Fear
Some people are so consumed by their fear of what will come tomorrow that they are paralyzed today. They worry that if they enjoy something too much, they will be devastated if it goes away. As a result, they are always hedging their bets, always pulling back at the last second from the edge of truly enjoying life. Their fear becomes a self-fulfilling cycle of discontentment.
4. Vision
To have vision for the future is a good thing, but some men become blind to the present. They can’t appreciate what they have now because they’re waiting to achieve the goals that will finally turn their life around. These men are greyhounds chasing the rabbit around a track with no finish line.
5. Multitasking
Multitasking spreads our attention across many activities, but keeps us from fully engaging any of them. There is no sense of completion for the multitasker because there is always something undone. When we multitask we don’t give ourselves fully to anything. Instead, we give some of ourselves to everything. This nullifies the reward of of seeing one thing to the end.
6. Hurriedness
Busyness is doing all the things that we are responsible for, but hurriedness is the frantic mental and emotional state we experience that accompanies our busyness. Hurried people can’t celebrate (which is the secret sauce of contentment) because they are focused on the next thing on their to-do list.
These assassins are deadly because they hide in the inner recesses of our hearts and enable us to have a certain degree of productivity. But the victory is short-lived.
Contentment is the fuel for a life well-lived.
Expositional Preaching…
“If the Bible really is what it says it is, every generation…needs to hear it laid out” -John Piper
“allow the text to provide the content” -Richard Coekin
“Unless you teach exposition, I don’t know why anyone would listen to you” -Tim Keller
I believe one of the greatest, most underutilized, tools of the church today is expository preaching — teaching what the Bible says. One of my main focuses as a a pastor is to be an expositor of the Word. These men discuss the importance of this practice below.
Fried Chicken & Trinity — Daddy’s Girl!
Here’s my girl enjoying some fried chicken and fries, African style. She learned that from me, NEVER pass up fried chicken (or Blue Bell)!!!
Today was a travel day for Trinity, Arch and Sherry. They’ve left Nairobi and relocated to a much more rural setting, out to”the African bush” Tomorrow she’ll get to experience an African Safari, in a land cruiser. YIKES! — Funny story, when Trin was about 5 we went down to Fossil Rim in Glenrose Texas. It’s a drive through safari type thing. Trinity was so scared she climbed over the back seat of the minivan and hid in the trunk storage for about half of the tour! Guess she’s come a long way since then…Hope so anyway! 🙂
Y’all keep praying for safe travels and a faithful, fruitful trip for Trin. We are so blessed to have so many people who love and support her. Thank y’all!
Trinity in Africa update…
Trin went back to the Children’s home for a second visit today. I got these words of encouragement from Arch (who Trin is traveling with) “This little boy is always scared of everybody….then he met Trin. If Trin has any cultural shock, you would never know. It’s like she’s been on a hundred trips with us.”
That’s my girl!! Compassionate, approachable, servant-hearted and adaptable.
Y’all please keep praying for Trin. Pray that she is able to take in all that she is experiencing and process it with God’s eyes. Pray that she serves well. We talked to her on the phone today (which was her evening) and I could tell that she was tired. God is faithful.
Tomorrow at church, she’ll be singing with an African children’s choir. Think she might stand out a little bit?
How did Trinity end up in Africa???
How did Trinity end up in Africa? Well, the short (and right) answer is of course, God. But God used people. Pictured above — Trinity and friends, Arch and Sherry Bonnema on their first day in Africa earlier this week. Arch and Sherry have done work with churches, orphanages and seminaries in Africa for years, and were gracious enough to bring Trin along with them on this trip. This trip has been a long time in the making for Trinity. She wanted to go with Arch and Sherry when they offered a couple of years ago, but mom and dad (especially dad) were still warming up to the idea. Trinity has spent quite a bit of time with the Bonnema’s over the last couple of years. They share a common interests in horseback riding, shopping, and evidently — missions.
But even before Arch and Sherry invited Trin those years ago, Trinity had international missions on her mind. She told me that ever since her “nanna and paw” (Jim and Brenda Brosch) left for full-time missions in Eastern Europe, it’s something she knew she wanted to do. Trinity also mentioned to me that she had thought quite a bit about missions specifically in Africa, because she had learned of her middle school English teacher’s daughter serving as missionary to Africa. And of course, some of Trinity’s earliest memories as a child are of mission trips with her family and church family to the Navajo reservation and other short term trips. She must have been 3-4 the first time she witnessed cross-cultural missions. Be careful y’all, service to God is contagious! 🙂
New Devotional!!!
Just got a new daily devotional by AW Tozer. I highly recommend his writing. Deep, God-centered, truth and reflection, written in such a way that it’s accessible to the layman, like ME!!
Trinity is in Kenya!!
Our Trinity made it to Nairobi Kenya safe and sound. She stayed last night at the Nairobi Arboretum, visited a church today and will be going to the Children’s home tomorrow. She is able to communicate with us via text message. They are 8 hours ahead of us. Picture above is from Tuesday morning at DFW. Casey and Trin both cried a little bit, I think I was in too much shock to cry! Lol. Y’all please keep praying for Trin. Pray for her safety of course, but also that her view of God would be expanded, her relationship with Jesus be deepened, her priorities reordered, that she would serve well, be a change agent, and also be changed herself.
Hope to include some pics of her in Kenya soon!
Pastor Roy Layman 