"Dad, why do you think God had you be unemployed right now?" My oldest son asked this question the other day. Good question. I told him I didn't know. After a brief pause he suggested, "I think it's so that we see that we have a lot more than the people in Zambia even when you're unemployed." Well... I think my son may be proved right. My heart swells with pleasure, even now as I'm writing, at the wisdom that God is building into my kids' hearts.
It's been an emotional roller coaster these past couple of months. We've watched God generously provide support for our Zambia trip, we're moving closer to the goal all the time and the end is in sight. As for my employment status... that's changed a bit too. I have taken a temporary position with a home improvement contractor that attends our church. It's a blessing. It pays significantly more than unemployment. My emotions are struggling to agree wholeheartedly with those thoughts though. The main emotional obstacle is that I had my own business in the past, and my customers paid me for my skills. As one would expect, I make less as an employee than I did while being self employed. Nevertheless, it absolutely is a blessing. It's my sin that makes it difficult to agree.
I wish character was built through comfort... It's a humbling thing to watch God provide support for our family to go to Zambia. It's humbling to see that support come sacrificially from the hands of some who we wish would keep it for their own needs. It's a humbling thing to not be able to provide for my family without seeing our savings diminish like the sands of an hourglass. Sometimes I'm afraid, and sometimes I'm ashamed.
It's adversity that tests our beliefs that God is sovereign, God is good, God is present with us, God is loving, and God is gracious. I want to be the kind of man who will praise God when any in my family (and anyone else) believe these things more from any of these experiences.
Been thinking a lot about you guys lately. In our experience, the more we think we don't have enough, the more God supplies more than we need. God wants us to be completely empty so only HE can fill us up. WE just tend to get in the way. I think every believer needs to raise support at least once in their life so they can see God provide, see God use people who have less than we do to help us out, and to experience the feeling of knowing it truly is nothing to do with me - only GOD can do this! It's an awesome thing. I'm sure you might already be doing this, but I would encourage you to write down every time God provides for your family during this time so you can go back to when times are hard. An example from our life: In Peru, we had to purchase tanks of gas about every month to run our shower and our stove (2 separate). We'd had visitors in our house (one who was there for about 2wks straight) and Brian went to check our gas (for the shower) since it had been over a month since we'd replaced it. It was still full. A month later, it was still full. We didn't have to buy more gas for 4 months! All God! He is awesome, He provides, and without Him, all the money in the world is pointless anyway. love you guys and are SO PROUD of what you're doing!
ReplyDelete-lisa, for all of us.