I think I’m still in denial that it’s almost May. I’m excited to come home, but I just cannot believe that my time at New Tribes Bible Institute is almost half over. I often find myself in awe of the opportunity God has given me here. Studying His Word has been incredible and often quite earth-shaking.
For a long time my view of myself has been that of a fairly strong, confident, Christian young woman. God has been faithful to break that self image down over these last few months. My definition of maturity has had to change. Possessing knowledge in principle is not the same thing has possessing knowledge experientially. Biblical knowledge can only translate into maturity when it is tested by time and trial. I’ve learned many truths in principle at NTBI. As I walk with Him through time and trial, He will grow me. We don’t get to define maturity, God does.
What a fantastic truth to rest in. He is faithful to grow us. He simply asks us to walk day by day, moment by moment, decision by decision, according to the truths revealed in His Word. Philippians 1:6 says, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” His faithfulness abounds.
For so long I’ve worried if spiritual fruit was being displayed in my life. As I’ve begun to understand the depravity of my own heart, I know that my flesh has tried to display its own ‘fruit’ to make myself feel better, to affirm my own actions, and to fuel my own pride. I’ve loved, shown joy, displayed peacefulness, and been kind to others purely for my own self gain. ‘Fruit’ of the flesh does not bless anyone but myself; it does not satisfy the soul like true fruit of the Spirit does. I pray that God continues to remind me that apart from Him I am detestable. I can stop worrying about fruit! His simple instruction for me is to walk humbly with Him, in accordance with His Word. Fruit of the Spirit is a natural, organic outflow of thriving in His truths as we live each day.
In Romans 12:1-2 Paul says, “I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” My inadequacy is overwhelming, but God is faithful to change our broken thinking. Good thing, because my thinking is very broken! :)
Thank you all who’ve been praying for the girls at the Salvation Army. My fellow students and I who facilitate our Bible study are always being stretched by our time there. The girls are such a blessing because through them God reminds us that we have to trust Him. If we are discouraged by the girls’ choices they’ve made or by the fact that we don’t see any results from our ministry, He commands us to trust Him. God, as our sovereign and faithful Provider, Healer and Sanctifier, will see to it that work is done in these girls’ hearts, in His own way and in His own time. We must trust Him and rest in the fact that He is in control and has these girls in the palm of His hand. Please continue to pray for them. If you’d like to know of specific areas of need in each girl’s life that you can be praying for, please send me an email.
I fly home on May 16th and my ACL reconstruction surgery is scheduled for May 21st. I am very excited to visit with all of you and since I’ll be laid up on the couch for a while, I’ll have plenty of time for visitors. ;) Thank you for your prayers and support.
God bless,
Abbey Smith
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
A Desperately Wicked Heart
Hello everyone! Sorry it’s been a while. There have been a few recent developments in my life.
As some of you may know, six week ago I tore my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in my left knee and will require reconstructive surgery. After counseling with NTM leadership, NTBI staff, and my parents I’ve decided the wisest decision is to go home this summer to have the surgery. Therefore Interface has been postponed until next summer, May-June 2011. Praise Him that He is eternally good regardless of the circumstances we may find ourselves in.
Thus far my sophomore semester has been incredible. The material from the Word we’ve been covering is both amazing and overwhelming. We worked through the Prophets and are now working through the Gospels. The life of Christ continues to expose and sharpen areas of my own life that need to be conformed to God’s way of thinking.
Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?” The Lord is faithful to reveal need in our lives. In class I’ve learned that throughout Christ's public ministry, He frequently confronted the wrong thinking of the Pharisees. The Pharisees believed that keeping the Law would warrant the righteousness God desired. They had bought into a lie. They failed to recognize the heart of the Law, which was to show man he would never achieve the righteousness necessary to enter the kingdom. If man recognizes the heart of the Law, the proper response is humility, recognizing his need to depend solely on the grace and mercy of a holy God.
As I read through these confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees, I must ask myself, what lies have I bought into? Sure, what I’m deemed to be the big, obvious sins are for the most part absent from my life. But I’ve realized that I've simply traded in what I perceive to be macho, more noticeable sins for ones that are simply easier to hide. The malice I have toward my roommates whose behavior doesn't meet my standards, the envious desire for approval and recognition from my friends, the lustful thoughts I allow to run rampant and unyielding through my mind, or the self-righteousness that permeates my perception of my own conduct and attitudes... The list goes on. My heart IS desperately wicked. There is no end to the depravity of my own flesh. Sin is sin, and no sin is less impactful than another. So why do I live convinced that I'm an overall “good Christian”? The self-righteousness that filled the hearts and minds of the Pharisees overflows within my own heart and mind as well.
It is important in my walk with God to understand who I am before His Holiness; that without Christ's blood I stand condemned. At the moment I stepped out in faith in the grace of God through Christ's sacrifice, God declared me righteous. Having been redeemed, I can now engage in a personal relationship with Him, walking day by day with Him in fellowship. Though my depraved flesh remains, I've been given a new nature through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I can choose to walk according to the truth of His sweet Word and therefore have fellowship with Him.
As I said before, He is faithful to reveal need in my life and I can attest from experience that this is true. The sin I mentioned earlier I cannot conquer on my own. Yet again God desires me to respond in humility and dependence on Him, resting on His overwhelming grace and mercy. I believe God uses failure to remind us that apart from Him, we are incapable and helpless. Through HIS might and power, not my own, I've been given full assurance of victory over the flesh. Praise God! His goodness is overwhelming.
My prayer for myself and those who read this is that we would choose to live according to the truths revealed in His Word, without missing the heart of God's instructions for godly living. He wants us to recognize our need and respond to His promises of peace, mercy, compassion and understanding. May our lives be characterized by humility and dependence on the God who is our Refuge, our Rock, our Redeemer and Savior.
- Please continue to pray for the girls in our Bible study at the Salvation Army. I believe that God is at work in the lives of the girls who have been coming for a while! Praise God that they are asking questions, working through areas of confusion in their theology, and starting to understand how Christ fits into their day to day life. There have been many new girls coming, who are all an answer to prayer, but several of them have recently discovered that they are pregnant. Please pray for wisdom for us and the girls during this time. Please pray that we would not be tempted to treat their lifestyle symptoms as the problem, but instead reach out in love and compassion to these girls whose souls are still lost. The girls who have been attending our Bible study fairly regularly are Cheyanne, Nichole, Kierstyn, Courtney, Nikay, Kayla, Amanda and Shelby.
Thank you all for your prayers and support.
God Bless,
Abbey
As some of you may know, six week ago I tore my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) in my left knee and will require reconstructive surgery. After counseling with NTM leadership, NTBI staff, and my parents I’ve decided the wisest decision is to go home this summer to have the surgery. Therefore Interface has been postponed until next summer, May-June 2011. Praise Him that He is eternally good regardless of the circumstances we may find ourselves in.
Thus far my sophomore semester has been incredible. The material from the Word we’ve been covering is both amazing and overwhelming. We worked through the Prophets and are now working through the Gospels. The life of Christ continues to expose and sharpen areas of my own life that need to be conformed to God’s way of thinking.
Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?” The Lord is faithful to reveal need in our lives. In class I’ve learned that throughout Christ's public ministry, He frequently confronted the wrong thinking of the Pharisees. The Pharisees believed that keeping the Law would warrant the righteousness God desired. They had bought into a lie. They failed to recognize the heart of the Law, which was to show man he would never achieve the righteousness necessary to enter the kingdom. If man recognizes the heart of the Law, the proper response is humility, recognizing his need to depend solely on the grace and mercy of a holy God.
As I read through these confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees, I must ask myself, what lies have I bought into? Sure, what I’m deemed to be the big, obvious sins are for the most part absent from my life. But I’ve realized that I've simply traded in what I perceive to be macho, more noticeable sins for ones that are simply easier to hide. The malice I have toward my roommates whose behavior doesn't meet my standards, the envious desire for approval and recognition from my friends, the lustful thoughts I allow to run rampant and unyielding through my mind, or the self-righteousness that permeates my perception of my own conduct and attitudes... The list goes on. My heart IS desperately wicked. There is no end to the depravity of my own flesh. Sin is sin, and no sin is less impactful than another. So why do I live convinced that I'm an overall “good Christian”? The self-righteousness that filled the hearts and minds of the Pharisees overflows within my own heart and mind as well.
It is important in my walk with God to understand who I am before His Holiness; that without Christ's blood I stand condemned. At the moment I stepped out in faith in the grace of God through Christ's sacrifice, God declared me righteous. Having been redeemed, I can now engage in a personal relationship with Him, walking day by day with Him in fellowship. Though my depraved flesh remains, I've been given a new nature through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I can choose to walk according to the truth of His sweet Word and therefore have fellowship with Him.
As I said before, He is faithful to reveal need in my life and I can attest from experience that this is true. The sin I mentioned earlier I cannot conquer on my own. Yet again God desires me to respond in humility and dependence on Him, resting on His overwhelming grace and mercy. I believe God uses failure to remind us that apart from Him, we are incapable and helpless. Through HIS might and power, not my own, I've been given full assurance of victory over the flesh. Praise God! His goodness is overwhelming.
My prayer for myself and those who read this is that we would choose to live according to the truths revealed in His Word, without missing the heart of God's instructions for godly living. He wants us to recognize our need and respond to His promises of peace, mercy, compassion and understanding. May our lives be characterized by humility and dependence on the God who is our Refuge, our Rock, our Redeemer and Savior.
- Please continue to pray for the girls in our Bible study at the Salvation Army. I believe that God is at work in the lives of the girls who have been coming for a while! Praise God that they are asking questions, working through areas of confusion in their theology, and starting to understand how Christ fits into their day to day life. There have been many new girls coming, who are all an answer to prayer, but several of them have recently discovered that they are pregnant. Please pray for wisdom for us and the girls during this time. Please pray that we would not be tempted to treat their lifestyle symptoms as the problem, but instead reach out in love and compassion to these girls whose souls are still lost. The girls who have been attending our Bible study fairly regularly are Cheyanne, Nichole, Kierstyn, Courtney, Nikay, Kayla, Amanda and Shelby.
Thank you all for your prayers and support.
God Bless,
Abbey
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The journey is the destination.
After a fantastic month at home, I now find myself back in Jackson, Michigan. I had such a great time meeting and chatting with my church family at ERCC. The more I learn and grow here at NTBI, the evermore grateful I am to call ERCC my church home. ERCC not only knows how to genuinely love people, but in His name is purposefully sharing that love with the Renton Highlands community. Love you all!
As some of you may know already, I was officially accepted onto the Interface team for this summer. I praise God for the opportunity to learn more firsthand about tribal mission work.
In many ways, the prospect of Interface is terrifying to me. I’m not going to merely experience the life and culture of a Papua New Guinean. I’m going for the opportunity to explore a future in missions. A future in missions! Me? Who am I to even entertain such a calling? Here at school I’ve had a lot of time to analyze the ludicrous possibility of my being a vocational missionary. Could I, the stereotypical middle class suburbia American, leave behind my family, language, culture, and country and submerse myself into a foreign culture for years? Most tribal cultures are animistic—what will my eyes be exposed to? How will I raise the support to stay overseas? If I’m single—how will I go at it alone? How can I maintain the energy and drive to invest in relationships with people I have absolutely nothing under the sun in common with? How will I accomplish all the work pertaining to whatever position I find myself in, all the while trying to find time to spiritually feed my soul to be able to persevere through whatever loneliness, culture shock, or discouragement I encounter?
Let me switch gears for a moment. During my first semester at NTBI I took classes on the Pentateuch and Old Testament History. The lessons learned in these two classes are many. One lesson, however, continues to reverberate in my mind. Man accomplishes nothing on his own; only through God is anything good ever accomplished. Did Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, Rahab, Gideon, David or Josiah accomplish anything righteous by their own power? Absolutely not. Isaiah 64:6 calls all our self-willed and self-sustained righteous deeds filthy rags. This in mind, why don’t we live convinced that God is exactly who He says He is?
Our God is the one true God, Lord of all. He keeps His promises. He warns His people of trouble. He communicates with His people through His Word. As a wise and loving Father, He rebukes and disciplines His children. He teaches His people. He desires our hearts. He hears our prayers. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He is faithful. (All these truths were gleaned from 2 Kings 17-19.) My God is clearly worthy of my trust and His purposes are undoubtedly worth giving my life for.
The more I learn at NTBI, the more I realize the gap between God’s expectations for me and my ability to meet them continues to widen. What is the answer to all the worries regarding a life in tribal missions I mentioned earlier? It’s simple: I cannot do it. Never could, never will. It is God who will accomplish His purposes, not me. I can do nothing by my own power, but fortunately I have a solid Rock on which to place my faith.
Where will this life lead? What is my purpose? What does my future hold? I have absolutely no idea. God simply asks me to walk in fellowship with Him. For the believer in Christ, the journey is the destination.
This semester I look forward to learning more about what ‘walking with God’ means. At NTBI I’ve been privileged with the incredible opportunity to develop an irreducible core set of Biblical beliefs. I desire for the ideals and values I hold in higher importance than anything else to be founded on the Word of God. I praise Him for His faithfulness!
Please pray for this Interface opportunity. There is still much preparation to be done and much support to be raised.
Please also continue to pray for the girls at the Salvation Army. Pray that God’s truth infiltrates their hearts and minds and transforms their attitudes and actions. We’re hoping to get them plugged into a church body soon. Please pray that we will be able to find a church that is founded on the Word of God and is within walking distance for us and the girls to attend.
Thank you all for your prayers and support.
God Bless,
Abbey Smith
As some of you may know already, I was officially accepted onto the Interface team for this summer. I praise God for the opportunity to learn more firsthand about tribal mission work.
In many ways, the prospect of Interface is terrifying to me. I’m not going to merely experience the life and culture of a Papua New Guinean. I’m going for the opportunity to explore a future in missions. A future in missions! Me? Who am I to even entertain such a calling? Here at school I’ve had a lot of time to analyze the ludicrous possibility of my being a vocational missionary. Could I, the stereotypical middle class suburbia American, leave behind my family, language, culture, and country and submerse myself into a foreign culture for years? Most tribal cultures are animistic—what will my eyes be exposed to? How will I raise the support to stay overseas? If I’m single—how will I go at it alone? How can I maintain the energy and drive to invest in relationships with people I have absolutely nothing under the sun in common with? How will I accomplish all the work pertaining to whatever position I find myself in, all the while trying to find time to spiritually feed my soul to be able to persevere through whatever loneliness, culture shock, or discouragement I encounter?
Let me switch gears for a moment. During my first semester at NTBI I took classes on the Pentateuch and Old Testament History. The lessons learned in these two classes are many. One lesson, however, continues to reverberate in my mind. Man accomplishes nothing on his own; only through God is anything good ever accomplished. Did Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, Rahab, Gideon, David or Josiah accomplish anything righteous by their own power? Absolutely not. Isaiah 64:6 calls all our self-willed and self-sustained righteous deeds filthy rags. This in mind, why don’t we live convinced that God is exactly who He says He is?
Our God is the one true God, Lord of all. He keeps His promises. He warns His people of trouble. He communicates with His people through His Word. As a wise and loving Father, He rebukes and disciplines His children. He teaches His people. He desires our hearts. He hears our prayers. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He is faithful. (All these truths were gleaned from 2 Kings 17-19.) My God is clearly worthy of my trust and His purposes are undoubtedly worth giving my life for.
The more I learn at NTBI, the more I realize the gap between God’s expectations for me and my ability to meet them continues to widen. What is the answer to all the worries regarding a life in tribal missions I mentioned earlier? It’s simple: I cannot do it. Never could, never will. It is God who will accomplish His purposes, not me. I can do nothing by my own power, but fortunately I have a solid Rock on which to place my faith.
Where will this life lead? What is my purpose? What does my future hold? I have absolutely no idea. God simply asks me to walk in fellowship with Him. For the believer in Christ, the journey is the destination.
This semester I look forward to learning more about what ‘walking with God’ means. At NTBI I’ve been privileged with the incredible opportunity to develop an irreducible core set of Biblical beliefs. I desire for the ideals and values I hold in higher importance than anything else to be founded on the Word of God. I praise Him for His faithfulness!
Please pray for this Interface opportunity. There is still much preparation to be done and much support to be raised.
Please also continue to pray for the girls at the Salvation Army. Pray that God’s truth infiltrates their hearts and minds and transforms their attitudes and actions. We’re hoping to get them plugged into a church body soon. Please pray that we will be able to find a church that is founded on the Word of God and is within walking distance for us and the girls to attend.
Thank you all for your prayers and support.
God Bless,
Abbey Smith
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