God's Got This!!!

I’m rather excited to see what God is going to do, and my hope is you will be encouraged, too! Let me give you a little background. Lately, I have been under a lot of stress. I won’t go into all the reasons. They aren’t life threatening and I know some of you face worse things, but I had allowed the pressure to get to me to the point that I was in continual physical pain. One of the problems was with our van. While we have been very thankful for our van, the roads here can be hard on vehicles. From the beginning, our van has had a tendency to overheat. We have had it worked on numerous times trying to fix the problem, but finally came to the realization that we would either have to replace the engine or replace the van. Replacing the engine can be risky here because you don’t really know what kind of engine you might get to replace it. We decided we would pray that God would provide some extra money at the end of the year so we could get a different vehicle. The van was getting worse, and we prayed it would make it till then. We made it to the end of the year and found that about four thousand dollars extra did come in for December. Praise God, and thank you so much to our supporters!!! With that, we thought we might have enough to get a cheaper vehicle. But we didn’t jump to buy one. We have learned that it is always better to seek God’s direction even if that means waiting a little. We didn’t have to wait long. Within 24 hours a different need arose that swallowed up all the extra money. It was clear the money was to go there because the extra money was almost exactly the amount needed. On the one hand, this was encouraging, for God not only knew what our needs would be, He had sent just the right amount! On the other hand, now what were we to do about the van? More stress. I decided I would take it to the mechanic and see what we could do to keep it running. There was no money for the work, but we would trust God to provide. This was on a Friday. The plan was to take the van to the mechanic on Monday. On Saturday the battery wouldn’t start the van. I had to jump the van to get to church on Sunday, and then jump it again to go home. Before we could make it home, the transmission started making noises and refusing to shift. As we pulled into our gate, the electronics on the dash went completely out. I had the feeling as if when I got out of the van and shut the door that the wheels would all fall off and the van would roll over on its side. What I felt was an urge to laugh and a sense of relief. It was clear that this was so much more than I could fix. Everything was more than I could fix, and I remembered that we had been here before. God had allowed us to be in these kinds of situations before. And either it was because there was some important lesson that we needed to learn, that, while it might not be pleasant, would in the end be for our good; or God was wanting to show Himself mighty, and was letting things get darker so His victory would be all the more clear. My attempt to try and fix things by my thinking had been answered with a resounding, “No!” Okay, I may be slow but I do eventually catch on. It was not up to me to fix this; God had a plan. I needed to surrender it to Him. That was not only true with the vehicle but all the rest as well. We have learned, when we get to this point, we don’t need to figure out the solution. We just need to focus on doing what we know to do, and trust God with the rest. We had planned to take the boys on the bus to go see Josh and Janae in Kenya. I really didn’t have the spare time or money to make this trip. It would have to be a quick one, lasting about 48 hours with over half of that being spent on the bus. But we knew it was important to go, so we decided not to think of the van and just go. Another thing we have learned is when you turn something over to God, you need to keep your eyes open to see what He might be doing so you can follow along. When we got to the school, we met up with a good missionary friend who told us he was feeling lead by God to offer to sell us his car. The car was much nicer than what we were looking for or even thought we could afford, but again, we have learned to rule out anything with God. So we asked him to pray about it and we would, too. He didn’t tell us how much he would ask for it, but in truth, it didn’t matter. We didn’t have any money for it. But more and more we felt that this was the car God intended for us to have, which meant God would have to be the One providing the money. I am not telling you this to try to make you feel sorry for us or to convince you to give money. The one thing God has made clear to me is that I am not to try to figure out a way to get the money. He already has a plan and I will just get in the way. I tell you this because I believe this is about much more than just our need. This is about God showing clearly how He can take care of those who trust in Him. That there is nothing He cannot deal with. Some of you need to hear this because you are facing situations that are beyond your ability to fix. I still don’t know how God is going to provide, but I believe He will and I write this in faith so you can see it from the impossible side before He steps in. I believe I will also be sharing sometime soon telling you how God has answered our prayers. This is a bit of a risk for if God doesn’t step in as I expect, I will look pretty foolish, but I have looked foolish for lesser things. So I invite you to stand with me to see the salvation of the Lord.