This morning, I am in DC awaiting my next flight this afternoon. I tell you, I am so excited that I have hardy slept in 3 nights, and didn't finally doze off until about 2am this morning. It's like trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve when you are 5 years old...just FORGET it :) As I was writing in my missions journal last night, I read something that really caught my eye. Dr. Bob Pierce, founder of Samaritan's Purse, had a principle he referred to as "God Room." Here's how it works: You see a need you believe God wants to meet, but YOU can't make it happen, despite all your efforts. When you get to the end of your own abilities, you realize you have to just pray and leave room for God to work. You TRUST Him to close the gap and do what is "impossible." Bob said FAITH isn't required as long as you set your goal only as high as your efforts can reach. He said you don't exercise faith until you have committed more than it's possible to give. When our human efforts aren't enough, and God is the only one who can fill the gap (the room) between what's possible and what He wants done that is impossible-- this is "God Room." In my country, we are taught that WE can do anything, as long as we put our minds to it. WE can... It's not innately a bad thought, to teach our children confidence and how to be a success, however, it is a flawed way of thinking. It is not WE who can, it is HE who can. When we submit ourselves to Christ, it means we turn away from WE. We turn instead, to HE. Now, did you catch that? We SUBMIT to Christ. Wow- I think this is where I often get into trouble, even when I'm preparing for a mission trip. Last night, in the airport, I had to take a moment and stop to really thank Jesus for this trip. To really put the focus on Him, and not on all my planning and preparation. After all, if I go without fully submitting to Him, I go for myself and lose all the power and anointing of God on this mission. I NEED Him. I have to have Him. It's not about ME, it is about Jesus Christ and His plan for the next 2 weeks. I cannot wait to see what He does during this trip. Only He can open the right doors, speak the right words, and soften the hardest of hearts. In whatever activity I do, from seeing friends, meeting new people, praying and comforting, working with the staff on how to further spread the word about Living Hope- all of it must flow out of me through the Holy Spirit inside me to the glory of the Father and the Son. Thank you for your continued prayers as God prepares my heart for this journey!
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This past Friday, I got my paycheck and sat down to "do the bills," which is a pretty awful exercise these days to be honest. I experienced a recently familiar dread as I began. You see, the last few months, I have not been tithing. For those of you who don't get the reference, Christian believers are instructed in God's Word to give a "tithe," or "tenth," of our income to the church, as a means for helping the work of the local church in its community, members of the church in need, etc. The most common scripture related to this is found in Malachi 3:8-12 NASB: "Will a man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me! But you say, 'How have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing Me, the whole nation of you! Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this," says the LORD of hosts, "if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes, " says the LORD of hosts. "All the nations will call you blessed, for you shall be a delightful land," says the LORD of hosts. This passage contains something VERY rare in the Bible, the phrase "test Me now in this." God knew our hearts, and our great concern and divide over money, yet He still offered... Test Me. Years ago, when I was still in college, I had a job I liked, but it didn't pay extremely well. It was good, but not great. I was not a faithful giver then either, and I read this passage one day... test Me, it said. After having been firmly affixed to riding "the fence" on this subject for years, I decided to begin giving 10% of my gross income to the church. For a few weeks, it was really hard. I was giving a tenth of my already limited money away, and not seeing any results (just like us Americans right? We want it NOW :) Well wouldn't you know that a few weeks after I started tithing, I got an amazing job opportunity making $3.00 more an hour! In 1998, this was a crazy big deal! The point is, I KNOW God is faithful and He does pour out a blessing when we honor His commands. So, this is where I was in my mind on Friday night when it came time to pay the bills. A feeling of dread because I knew I wasn't doing what I should be doing. Just then, a thought came to me... "Put your money where your mouth is." For my non-American friends, this is a pretty common expression in the US, along with a similar phrase... "Put up, or shut up." Basically, talk is cheap. Actions mean a whole lot more. If something is important to you, really important, you will back it up financially, because we only spend our money on what we find worthwhile. This is why I am a D.A.D. Supporter for Living Hope (see www.livinghope.co.za for more info), and why I go over there every year at my own expense if I cannot raise the funds. You put your money where your mouth is. So... that was pretty much the end of the discussion between me and my checkbook. I wrote my tithe check and dropped it in the offering plate on Sunday. I choose to trust that God is faithful and that He will bless the 90% that remains. I am leaving for Cape Town again on August 30th. I am BEYOND excited. In fact, I can think of little else :) As many of you know, there has been a recent Ebola virus outbreak in Liberia, a country located in West Africa. I won't get into the details here, but let's just say I have had many calls, emails, and Facebook messages from family and friends expressing their concern about my safety in going to Africa. First things first, to set a few people at ease, I would like to let you know that I will be at the very southern tip of the African continent (that is about as far away from Liberia as Alaska would be to Tennessee). Worry not friends, all should be fine on that front :) All of this talk did get me thinking however... Last week, I had a brief conversation with my pastor about the trip, and we talked also about "safety." I told him how we Christian Americans are far too concerned with our safety. After all, Jesus had 12 disciples- let's do the numbers: 1 hung himself out of despair for betraying The Lord, 1 died imprisoned on an island, and 10 were executed or wounded to the point of death for their faith in Jesus Christ. On Monday night, my pastor shared with me a story of when he was leaving on an overseas mission trip. He was asked to lead the prayer before boarding the airplane. He prayed for the people they were going to minister to, for their faith to grow and for life change to take place, he prayed for safe travels... and then he paused and did something radical. He told God, in front of the entire group, that their lives belonged to Him, for Him to spend as He chose, and that if He would get more honor and glory from the plane going down in a ball of fire, then let it be so. God love him!!! I bet you can imagine the faces of the others when he said "Amen" and opened his eyes. Here is the thing about Jesus- He isn't SAFE. Nothing in His word calls believers to a life of ease and safety. If you were told that when you accepted Christ, I'd go get my money back. He calls to us, "Follow Me," and if we are all wise, we will each read the Bible for ourselves and find out what that really means. I am reading a book called "Chasing Francis," and today, this despcription of the life of a follower of Jesus really stuck out to me: "It's to live dangerously open, revealing all that we genuinely are, and receiving all the pain and sorrow the world will give back in return. It's to be real because we know THE Real. Maybe living the unprotected life is what it means to be a Christian." So I plan on living the unprotected life, giving back to God what has always been His to begin with. What will you do? |
AuthorI am passionate about world missions, specifically the country of South Africa. As an Ambassador for Living Hope Ministries in Cape Town, I am honored to serve with them in impacting their community for Christ! Archives
August 2018
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