I really struggled with coming up with a subject title for this series of classes. The official title was "Living a Life Worthy of the Lord" and it was broken up into three parts. A part on spiritually living, a part on relationally living, and a part on personally living. The guest speakers were a missionary couple who had spent most of their 40 year marriage with their personal ministry which helps to take care of missionaries. You could say they are a little like a missionary version of Dr. Phil who teach people how to take care of themselves spiritually. Their own testimonies of faith are an encouragement!
The part on spiritually living drew on the verse Colossians 1:9-14. This verse talks about how we should pray. We were told that the men are the SOUL providers for the their family. Their duty is to feed their family's soul with love and encouragement as well as Bible time. We never realized how important Bible time as a family could be until they showed us an example of how to have spiritual time together. It was beautiful, heartwarming, and intimate. Afterwards, we were given our own Bible verse and were asked to get together as a couple and study the verse together. Afterwards, we were to pray together. It was very encouraging and definitely made Kevin and me feel closer. I think this was my favorite part of the training!
The part on relationally living talked about how we relate to others. So often in our lives we feel "wronged" or "hurt" by someone else. This leaves a whole in us that can only be filled by forgiveness. But, it is important for us to learn what true forgiveness is, otherwise, we can hurt more than one person. Let's say I were to get in a fight with my best friend. My husband suffers because he is friends with her husband. Their children suffer because they are friends with Adah. Then, I am no longer the only person who feels "wronged" or "hurt" but my family now feels this way towards me. It is a trickle down effect and is can tear people up physically, mentally, and spiritually. So we first learned what true forgiveness is and is not. I think the hardest lesson to understand for people is that forgiveness ultimately comes from God, not man.
The final part was on personally living. Sometimes in our lives we need to seek God and the best way to do that is to focus on a Christ like character in our personal lives. For example, humility, self-control, patience, love, joy, etc. This was a very soul searching process, especially as we did this as a couple. I have to be honest and say that this was a very raw moment for our marriage and I shed quite a few tears. Intentional living is very hard but it helps to bring you closer to God. Don't believe me? Ask God for humility and see what happens!
Overall, the training really helped to build strength in our family as well as how our family relates to others. It also helped us to see how important our prayer partners are in our lives.
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