Fear and Pride
“The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” - Proverbs 29:25
If you are reading this, you may be thinking: wow, it has been a long time since the Betterton’s posted an update! And that is, obviously true. I (Adam) have been meaning to do it, however fear and pride have stood in my way (sounds silly, I know).
Proverbs 29:25 perfectly diagnoses my issue: the fear of man and my own pride are what drive the way I make many decisions in life, and it sets a trap for me. For example, the amount of times I have to retrain my mind as I prep a sermon or Bible study to go from “Will they think I know what I’m talking about?” to “Does this glorify God?” is certainly alarming. I can even trace ways in which I discipline my children to how I think others may think about me as a parent instead of being grounded in Biblical wisdom and obedience. It is rather embarassing!
Some people will say that there is a lot of good in being aware of how you portray yourself to the world around you. While that can be true, Christians must be more concerned with the way we are portraying Jesus than how we are portraying ourselves. And the funny thing is that when I make Adam the priority, it overwhelms my ability to move, the weight of my own pride and the idol of my self-image is crushing and debilitating. Case in point: if I can’t think of some compelling and whimsical thing to write in a blog post, I just don’t do it, even though the primary reason the blog exists is because I am in need of support and prayer.
How often do we not enter into a situation because we fear the way people will think of us? And what would it look like if we lived not in fear, but in confidence of our union with Christ and our adoption through him.
Jesus entered into the most fearful station on our behalf. We are called not to fear man, but to fear God. Yet even this kind of fear is informed by Christ, who entered in and took the full wrath of God for our sin so that we no longer need to fear it! For those who believe, our fear of God does not terminate with anxiety of His severe punishment, but in awe of His great mercy and love.
If we no longer need to be fearful of God’s wrath as believers, why do we waste our energy being worried about the wrath of mankind?
Pray that as I continue on this adventure that is church planting, we would plant a church that portrays Christ and not Adam and would be more concerned with giving Him glory, than any sin ridden pastor. Pray that our family would not fear the world, but would trust in the Lord and his provision for our identity, for our sustenance, and as our guide.
Life Update:
We are coming up on the end of the school year. And many of our prayers and your prayers on our behalf have been answered! Praise God for that! Here is our list of ways you have been praying since our last post:
Please pray for our boys to continue to feel loved in this new place and lifestyle and that God would protect and keep them as they are in the world but not of the world.
Pray for Kirsten to sense direction and purpose as she continues to build relationships and serve our family and God’s people in a variety of ways.
Pray for Adam’s studies. He seeks licensure in the PCA in April, which means lots of studies between now and then.
Pray for direction as our family continues to seek God’s will for a location to plant a church.
Pray that God would use us to spread the good news, that we have a Savior who loves us so much he came to earth to die in our place!
In the past four months, here are some of the ways we have seen God work:
Morrow competed in his first wrestling tournament he went 2-2 and LOVES wrestling! Louis and Morrow completed their first soccer season - absolute chaos!
Kirsten has enrolled in the Masters in Arts Christian Counseling program at Erskine Theological Seminary and will begin classes this summer.
I passed licensure exams and am officially licensed to preach by Calvary Presbytery.
We have many opportunities set before us for potential locations to plant a church. Call me if you want the details!
Adam had the opportunity to go and support missionaries, churches, and a few other ministries in Belgium for a little over a week!
We know that God hears our prayers and he answers them! So here is a fresh list!
We are hoping to make a decision on where to church plant in the fall. Please pray that we keep our priorities centered on Christ and we don’t let fear or pride drive our decision.
We are headed to Texas for Summer Camp in June! Please pray for safe travels, and that our time in Texas would be fun and exciting and that it would provide clarity as we visit with people about a few church planting options there.
Also pray that the messages I preach at Camp Eagle would benefit the body of Christ and lead people to Jesus!
Pray for Kirsten’s wrists! She broke both of them snowboarding in March. She is a trooper and super-tough and has been amazing through the whole thing. But she still has lots of physical therapy ahead to regain strength and range of motion.
Pray for me as I plan to undergo the final steps to ordination this summer!
We are so thankful for our God given community! For those of you in Texas, we hope to see you when we are there between June 13-22.
Chasin’ waterfalls!
Morrow with his wrestling buddies! He’s serious!
Morrow’s 8th birthday party with friends from his class, church, wrestling, and cousins from Charlotte!
Morrow’s soccer team!
Louis after his final soccer game with his teacher and good friend!
Morrow with a crawfish! Our friends own a cajun restaurant in town and invited us to come check it out!
Louis learning how to eat crawfish from our friend.
Snowboarding fun with Louis!
More fun in the snow!
Snowboarding disaster! She’s a champ!
Louis fishing during our camping trip (no fish were harmed in the making of this photo)
Licensure examinations at presbytery.
