Surprise Encouragement

Right now, this very instant, my brother is sharing a praise report with me about a girl who's in his Bible study group that he leads.

Let me tell you some background. When I was in college and in Miles Militis core, my prayer request was for my family especially my brother. I never knew where he stood spiritually; and I guess I just always doubted that he stopped believing once he entered college. I don't really know why I thought that. But starting his third year at UCSC, he told me that he's on core for UCSC AACF and I was shocked. I didn't even see it coming. But when I heard the news, I was really happy. Even so, we never really shared about our spiritual lives with each other or anything like that. He just knew that I go to church on Sundays, was apart of core, etc. And all I knew about him was that he was on core for AACF. Every once in a while I'd visit UCSC AACF's tumblr page because I get their Facebook messages and I'd see entries by my brother. They're all so encouraging to know that he's been reading the Word and what he's getting from it.

So today, he IMs me out of no where and starts sharing with me a praise report about this girl who started coming to the Bible study he leads and how she didn't even know how to look up verses in the Bible. She didn't own a Bible so my brother and the other core member he leads with bought her a NIV study Bible - the super heavy, hardcover one. It's now almost the end of their school year and she shared a verse that she found on her own.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9

My brother was just so amazed at how someone can go from not knowing how to read the Bible to accepting Christ. I still can't believe that he just straight up shared with me. I am in such a good mood right now. God is good.