Living by faith is hard. No one ever promised me it would be easy, but I figured that after doing it for awhile you would some how get used to it. I'm finding that I was wrong; it still seems the most unnatural thing for me to do. I have countless stories of God's faithfulness in my life, yet every time I face a new giant I wonder if this might be the time the Lord won't pull through. I want things that I can touch and feel; things like concrete plans and balanced budgets, I want numbers to be crunched, deadlines to be met and problems to be solved; I want to know exactly where I stand. But for some reason God hasn't been doing what I want lately, He has had the audacity to make me sweat things out. He keeps telling me to trust Him and I answer, "but what if..." He patiently comes back with another "trust me" and I respond with a "how can I know for sure." I get the feeling that I'm asking a foolish question because by the very nature of trust I won't ever know for sure.
My sister called me last week and challenged me to step out in faith and enroll my kids at the school they know and love. I looked into the cost and realized that the giant I was facing was huge, I actually decided that he was too big, and I started to retreat. Apparently in my mind God can do many things, but come up with the cost of tuition was asking too much. Instead of retreating I kept walking forward because I wanted to prove to myself that I believed more of God. I went and got the paper work, Tom filled it out, and we turned in their applications, simply because I didn't want to reduce my God to my budget. I wanted to step out and show myself that I can trust Him. I know that He may not provide for my kids to go to school there, but I needed to stop making my giants bigger than my God. This was a step of faith; and I felt good about it..... that is until today. I was eating lunch when we got a call saying that the school no longer gives discounts to missionaries. I was crushed, I felt sad and sick all at the same time. Sad because I felt like we were rejected by an old friend, like this school that has my love and loyalty didn't reciprocate my feelings. Sick because I felt like I was on my own, with a burden too big for me to bear, and then I remembered my God is bigger. Living by faith is hard because you have to continue to have faith even when your circumstances seem impossible. I had gotten used to having faith for a certain amount of money, but I started to waver once that went up; so today after I took a few huge steps back, I'm once again trying to trust God. Once again trying to believe Him and although He may say no, He is still and always will be bigger than my budget.
2 comments:
Hey there buddy! I'm so glad to see you back blogging again. Somehow we signed up for your e-mail newsletter to save a tree and stopped getting them altogether around Christmas time, so I've felt completely out of touch with you guys. I know exactly what you mean about friends coming and going in different seasons and it's so hard, but I agree with your awesome mom that it's still worth it to have the friendships. I miss you lots and can't wait to see you again and have been praying for you. Hang in there my friend. I love you. Julianne
Hi there darling girl, Our forty days of prayer is exactly for the reason of enlarging our image of our awesome God, to increase our faith as we realize the might and power of our God, to see His purpose and His plan for our lives. To step out in faith taking baby steps is much easier than the giant steps God has asked of you these past few years. This is another one of those giant steps. Whether He brings the funding in for the kids to go to school your stepping out in faith is pleasing to Him. If the funding doesn't come through it means He has something else for them, something that will be better for them. I'm looking forward to seeing how He directs each one of us through this time of diligent prayer.
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