If you’re anything like me just thinking about fundraising sucks. Money does not grow on trees or fall out the sky. No worries I checked already. You can’t make three wishes and it magically appears.
My most recent battle with fundraising was torture until I realized why. I needed to raise $2400 to Peru for a mission trip I knew the Lord was calling me to do. I went to the interest meeting knowing I didn’t have a job and I told the Lord, “ You will have to part the Red Sea and send a miracle my way for me to go.” I left the meeting knowing that I was going on this trip and knowing it was going to take a miracle indeed for it to happen. Days later my small group leader texted me and ask if II really wanted to go and of course my response was yes. She said, “ I’ll pay your deposit for you to go.” Wait, what?!!!!!! We were nearly strangers to one another and she was willing to spend her hard earned money on me? Yes I cried but I was even more grateful that she saw my heart and heard His voice and act on it. The deposit was paid and I was all in! I made a GoFundMe page and it was dry…for months.
I wasn’t discouraged because it was early. Eventually I received donations and I was so grateful. I got a sub position at a school and it wasn’t enough to finish paying off the trip as I hoped and devised many ways to. I hit another dry spell and it was beginning to be uncomfortable because I had no control of people wanting to donate to what I knew God was calling me to do yet I had to be vulnerable to ask and hope that people would see my heart and know this wasn’t just some random adventure.
You assume that the closest ones to you would donate because they love you. That’s a good enough reason right? You begin counting on your fingers of how many family and friends are sure to donate and support you. But what happens when they don’t?
I know what happened to me. I became bitter and discouraged. I became selfish. I became the girl with the bad attitude because she did not get her way. And as much as I didn’t want to be bitter every time I would see or hear my friends or family talk about buying some material things or using THEIR money to buy what they wanted… deep down inside I was being crushed. My thought was…”They don’t think I’m worth sparing a combo meal or a shirt to do the work of the Lord?” Grant it, I can’t tell anyone how to spend their money. I couldn’t see through their bank account. I was only hoping that the same heart I had to give to others, others would have the same heart towards me.
I started to put all my attention on how hurt I was that some of the closest ones to me had yet to donate but they wanted my attention, my encouraging words, and my time. I was tired of giving and giving and not receiving. It wasn’t until God opened my eyes to show me how selfish I was and my lack of faith. My faith was in the wrong place. I was so focused on people that I barely focused on what God told me and what His word said. I was so broken one night that I cried and cried because I was use to being able to pay for things on my own. It was uncomfortable not being able to trust in my ability to provide for myself. It was uncomfortable to be vulnerable to others asking and pleading for money. This was the very place that I needed to be. To know that it wasn’t okay for me to trust in my own ability to provide for myself. I knew that everything that I had and that I needed was in the hands of God. This is where I learned to really trust God and to let go of my fears of depending on myself. It was so freeing. The burdens I had placed on myself was lifted. The moment I let go God showed himself.
God provided. He still provides. I did go to Peru on the mission trip God called me to. I saw lives changed but I also saw my life change. It was a unforgettable journey that gave me hope and the reassurance that wherever there is purpose God’s provision also follows. His word tells us to “ Seek the Kingdom above all else and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need.” Matthew 6:33. That is exactly what I am doing.
“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it written, “ the righteous shall live by faith.” Romans 1:17.
As I enter into a new season of traveling to South America August 2016 my faith is continually strengthened because I have to raise $17,561 and even the once sub position turned full-time job won’t pay for it. I have completely surrendered my plans and my ways of trying to figure out how I can raise this money. I don’t know how $17, 561 is going to get raised but I fully trust in the Lord and it will happen. I believe in miracles and hear them all the time. This journey is yet a miracle in the making.
I once heard that God’s love language is faith. And so I have faith in God to do just what He said He will do. My prayer is that as you continue to follow the journey your faith would be strengthened.
Matthew 17:20 “ You don’t have enough faith, “ Jesus told them. “ I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.”
Matthew 7:7-8 “ Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds. and the one who knocks it will be opened.”
#12n1 #SouthAmerica #TheWorld Race #Missions #Jesus
