Today was pay day at work!! Woohoo!! I was really looking forward to today because I've had to pay some big World Race-related expenses out of my own pocket recently (if I raise above and beyond the $15,500 I need to raise for the World Race I can be reimbursed for these expenses but until then they have to come out of my own pocket). So today after work (an extremely emotionally and physically tiring day of work) I was estimating that I had at least $250 in my bank account (our pay gets directly deposited into our bank accounts), and I stopped by the grocery store on my walk home to pick up a few things. But when I got to the check out the register was saying that I had insufficient funds on my debit card. I left the store quite shaken up. I could only guess what was going on. I was really hoping that there was just something wrong with the store's register. I checked my bank accout online immediately when I got back to my apartment to find that I have $8.60 in my account. After viewing my recent transactions I realized that I'd forgotten to take into account a couple expenses that I'd paid by check a while ago that weren't taken out of my account until yesterday. Thank the Lord that I was paid today or I would be indebted to the bank! $8.60 to sustain me until the next pay day in two weeks…
What happened today brought on a barrage of thoughts and questions that have come up more than once in the past couple weeks. What am I doing? I can't afford this! What if God doesn't provide the money I need? I feel so overwhelmed. I don't have the time and energy to put as much effort into support raising as I want. If I hadn't had to pay for airfare to and from training camp, for international insurance, for the postage to overnight my application for a visa to India, for airfare to the place we're meeting as a squad before we fly to Romania, and for a tent, backpack, hiking sandals,and sleeping bag, I'd have over a thousand dollars in my bank account right now. I'm pretty sure my family thinks I've gone crazy. I feel so guilty about leaving my friends and family for 11 months. What if this isn't worth what I'm giving up? What if I can't adjust to life in different countries? Maybe this will be too hard for me. What if, what if, what if…
These are the truths I'm clinging to tonight:
"Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? YOU have the words of eternal life.'" (John 6:68) God is my EVERYTHING! He has led me to go on the World Race. I can't live apart from the will of God! He is the Love of my life. I cannot live in conscious disobedience to Him. As hard as it is to live in His will, it would be impossible to live apart from it. My soul yearns to follow God with everything in me.
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." (John 14:27)
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)
"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled…
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3,6,10)
"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (Matthew 6:34)
"All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved." (Matt. 10:22)
"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." (Matt. 10:29-31)
"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me." (Matt. 10:37-38)
"Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave–just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Matt. 20:26-28)
"'I tell you the truth,' Jesus replied, 'no one who has left his home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields–and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.'" (Mark 10:29-30)
"And now, compelled by the Spirit , I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me–the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace." (Acts 20:22-24)
"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will." (Romans 12:1-2)
"When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)
"To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world." (1 Corinthians 4:11-13)
"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves FULLY to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." (1 Cor. 15:58)
"Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us (2 Corinthians 1:9-10)
"For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to SAVE those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, BUT we preach CHRIST CRUCIFIED: A STUMBLING BLOCK TO JEWS and FOOLISHNESS TO GENTILES, BUT TO THOSE WHOM GOD HAS CALLED, both Jews and Greeks, CHRIST the POWER of God and the WISDOM of God." (1 Corinthians 1:21-24)
"Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a 'fool' so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: 'He catches the wise in their craftiness'; and again, 'The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.'" (1 Corinthians 3:18-20)
"Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God." (1 Cor. 4:5)
"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the SURPASSING GREATNESS of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ" (Philippians 3:7-8)
