. . . You actually have to live it out!!!
This is something that God taught me this past month in Togo. This past month was an Ask The Lord (ATL) month and we knew God was calling us to go to Togo but about 2 days before we left, the contact that we were supposed to go to could not take us after all. But since we knew God wanted us to go, we went anyways knowing that it would truly be walking by faith and seeing where God wanted to take us.
So we got to Togo and prayed and prayed as to what God wanted us to do. God put some contacts in our way, but none seemed to work out for our team. We would find a couple of contacts and a couple days later it would fall through. Then us and two other groups were supposed to go to an orphanage/boys’ home, but the day we were supposed to leave my group and the squad leaders felt that our group was supposed to stay back and not go. So the other two groups left and we started praying some more. That day we had a couple more options but had to wait until the weekend was over to hear back from any of them. Well Monday came and went and we had only one option that did not fall through- working with some IMB missionaries at a seminary. They needed some painting done and we were happy to do it!!!! I had yet to paint on the World Race and now can add it to my World Race resume J.
All of this taught me one thing- be careful what you ask God for because He will answer your prayers but it might be different from what you were expecting. Before we found our ministry and right when we moved to another hotel (which was our 3rd one in about a week) I almost had a melt down. I was so overwhelmed and getting frustrated about having so many options (almost too many) to having none in a matter of days. Normally this would not have bothered me (I mean we are used to moving around and things not turning out what you expected them to be, but knowing that God had something better for us than we could imagine. In Cambodia we moved about every 5 or so days and it was perfectly fine!). So I knew I needed some quiet time with God and just poured out my thoughts to Him. During this He spoke to me. Even though it was my own voice in my head, I knew the revelation came from Him because there was no way I would have come to this conclusion all by myself! In a sweet, loving, fatherly way, God told me basically “Honey, this is what faith looks like” and it blew me away! God also brought me to Hebrews 11 and if you have not read it I suggest you do!
We are always talking about living by faith and etc. etc. but when it comes down to it, how many of us actually truly live by faith? Back home I thought I was living by faith all the time, but after this month God has taken me to a whole new level!!! I had been praying over the past couple months for God to increase my faith and this past month God sure brought it! In my life I know what it is like to not be in control, but this past month I truly felt and understood what it was like to actually TRULY NOT BE IN CONTROL and in the beginning it scared me. I had to completely trust in God and when things got rocky to keep on trusting in who I know God to be! Faith is so important and is vital to our daily lives with God! We always talk about faith but do we actually live it out? Do we actually live our faith out? Are we truly trusting God with it all, especially when the way to go is not in sight?
So all of this to say- faith is great and is so easy until we actually live it out! I want to challenge you all to try living by faith talked about in the Bible- faith talked about in Hebrews 11. Your life will never be the same!!!
