Our Guest: Mary Foky
Mary Foky is a registered nurse who served in the US Army for six years. Married to an Army Major and now mother of three, Mary is committed to the process of personal sanctification and sharing the love of Jesus with her neighbors and community.
Key Thoughts and Scriptures from Mary’s story:
Isaiah 43:11 AMP “I, [only] I, am the Lord, and there is no Savior besides Me.”
- Mary felt that it made sense that the main central focus of her life was something she should get right and not just believe without having thought it through personally.
- “I could not deny God’s reality, His power, His goodness, His presence in my life, but it was still really hard for me to relinquish control.”
- God was teaching Mary gently and graciously that He doesn’t need her to do anything or save anyone.
“If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavour, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever.” ― Timothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work
- The arc of history hinges on the cross and on the resurrection and how our lives fit into Jesus’s story.
Colossians 1:15-23 NIV The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created…
- So the reality is that the fullness of God dwelt in a human Jesus and He holds all things together.
- It sunk down into Mary’s heart and made her realize she doesn’t have to accomplish anything on Christ’s behalf. She has the privilege of just following His lead.
Proverbs 15:1 NIV A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
In Jesus, justice and gentleness can and do go together.
Isaiah 42:3 NIV A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice.
- That tension between justice and mercy is solved on the cross.
- We all have those issues that God reminds us again and again in our lives that He wants to work on in us.
Proverbs 22:6 NKJV Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
Hebrews 13:21 NIV Equip you with everything good for doing his will…
Psalms 127:3-5 NIV Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him…Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them…
- “It’s funny how sometimes the things coming out of my mouth at my children are also things God’s speaking to me.”
John 14:27 NIV Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
- “Radically Ordinary Hospitality”
John 13:34-35 NIV A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
- What Mary and her husband want to do is to build loving Christian community that is quiet but radical.
- A community of people that seeks the desires and good of others above themself with radical self-giving, that is not common in our culture.
Mary and her family see their home not as theirs at all, but as God’s gift for them to use for the furtherance of His kingdom.
- “What every person that I meet needs, not me, they don’t need me, Mary Fokey. They need the hope of the world, Jesus.”
2 Timothy 1:6 NIV For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
- “I already have the thing that gives me meaning and purpose in my life, so I don’t need to seek that in my relationships.”
Acts 1:1-2 NIV In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.
- Jesus is still doing and teaching in the world through the same way. It’s almost entirely about regular people through the power of the Holy Spirit spreading the Church.
John 16:7 TLB But the fact of the matter is that it is best for you that I go away, for if I don’t, the Comforter won’t come. If I do, he will—for I will send him to you.
- We’re not God’s plan B. It’s how He chooses to work in history
- God certainly shows His love to the world when imperfect people can love other imperfect people in imperfection and the Lord empowers us to love in perfect ways if we let Him.
- Be connected with other local Christians. Don’t try to struggle through solo.
Ruth’s Story
- The book of Ruth shows how God was still working salvation.
- For the plot line up to that point is humans have sinned and we need a Savior, we need a hero.
Genesis 3:15 NKJV And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.
- The genealogy at the end of the book makes sure to point out that she is the bearer of the hope of humanity.
- Ruth doesn’t do anything by the world’s standards.
- In the kingdom of God, her quiet faithfulness and obedience is a model and just points to the surprising way that God’s salvation plan is carried forward.
John 6:1-15 NIV Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand
- When we do those small things out of love and obedience to God, recognizing that Jesus is the hero, the Savior that He really is, He can do amazing things in and through each one of us.
Ephesians 3:18 NIV May you have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ
Ruth 2:12 NIV May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.
Books:
- Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work by Timothy Keller
- The Gospel Comes with a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield
Links:
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