Making the Most of Every Opportunity

I've been writing about ways we can seek God's glory intentionally as we eat out. Feel free to go back and read the rest of the series. I mentioned thinking about daily life intentionally in Post 1, pouring into family while eating out in Post 2 , and eating within a budget in Post 3 . This last post is the part of our eating out that we love the most: pouring into others . We love good food. But the food is only one part of our experience eating out. Our favorite part is building relationships where we can encourage others in Christ. Eating together is a great opportunity to build relationships with people and eating out has given us relationships with restaurant owners/ employees that we met because we love their restaurant. We have grown in so many relationships with people by eating together regularly. Eating together after church became a regular habit in a group of friends we had when we were first married and it was such wonderful weekly fellowship. Once our group s...

I've been writing about eating out and how to keep in mind doing everything to the glory of God as we go (or don't) out. You can catch up with Post 1 and Post 2 by clicking on them. Today I want to talk about the financial side of eating out. If there is one reason I can see to completely eliminate eating out, this is it. But I don't want these posts to be a defense of eating out. Whether or not you should is something you need to carefully weigh with God. We have had seasons where we knew God was calling us to eat at home only and give generously. We had seasons where we could not afford to eat out, so we did not.I guess what I'm trying to say is:  I will not try to pretend that eating out is cheap.  It's not. But it can be done within budget. That is where I'll hang for this post: with a budget. We have a line in our budget for food and know that is all we have for the month. We may choose to go out once or twice a month at nice restaurants or several time...

I shared in my last post that we like to eat out. We have 2 kids and they enjoy it, too. We know that when we do it, eating out should be to God's glory. So here is one big way we look to point to Christ as we eat out: family. We want our eating out to lift each other towards Christ. Here are a few benefits: 1) It's a way to serve my husband.   Andy LOVES eating out. When we first met in college, Andy ate out daily.When we married, most of our friends ate out on the weekends and we often went together. It was fun, social, and totally normal. Once kids came, Andy didn't stop enjoying it, but our friends stopped going. When we went through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, we saw that most of our monthly spending was eating out. It was way too much money (I think it was $800 one month. Yikes!), but that massive amount we invested showed that it was something we enjoyed doing together. Andy didn't want to cut it out completely. I agreed to keep it in our bu...

"So, whether you eat or drink, or   whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." -1 Cor. 10:31 Ahhhh... eating out. My friend Beth posted on her blog confessing she eats out often. She shared that it works for her life stage of no kids and enough paycheck. Then I noticed that most of her friends who thought it was great also clarified that it makes sense since she doesn't have children. I searched to see if any of her friends with kids admitted that they also eat out a lot. None did. That was awkward for me because I'm a (pregnant) mom with 2 kids. And we eat out out. Often. Sometimes more than once a week. Our friends and family all know this. Suddenly, I wondered if people who know me judge me for eating out. Then I panicked that maybe it's wrong to eat out and I've just been blind to it. So I called Andy (who laughed at me) and then prayed. God did a sweet work in my heart to reassure me that He is well pleased with me. I'm reminded that my heart an...