Counting the Days

Forty-three days from today we will be leaving for Thailand. God willing. A year and a half we’ve been trying to put this trip together. Even though we’ve purchased the airline tickets and reserved the hotel for the first night in Bangkok it doesn’t feel real yet. We still look at the calendar and wonder if it’s really true.

We really need to knuckle down and work on our Thai language lessons.

We still have friends and family asking us if this is a wise time to be doing this. We’re reminded frequently of the economy and the fact that people don’t have a lot of money to support this kind of thing. Our only response is to ask if that means this might be a bad time to trust God.

A couple of weeks ago, the pastor talked about how easy it is to let our circumstances dictate our faith. We look at what’s going on around us and think we might need to play it safe. What he was saying was that we should look not so much at what’s in front of us, but rather look closely at what’s behind us. We need to remember what God has done for us and believe that God is going to do the same thing now.

I can look back over several of these blogs and see the journey that God has brought us on. Every time we have begun to doubt or wonder or worry, God has brought us some new blessing. Even getting us to start thinking about this course of action was the hand of God at work. And even though this is the third time we’ve tried to take our Survey Trip, and even though it hasn’t happened just yet; we’re believing for this to happen. Because throughout this journey, God hasn’t given us a reason to doubt.

We were in Seattle a few weekends ago and we spoke at a church. A small congregation that is struggling to pay their own bills. But the pastor was insistent that we come and talk anyway. He told us that he was going to ask for a special offering in spite of their financial situation. Not because he wanted to put the church into dire financial straits, but because he believed in God’s promise that if we give, we will receive. If we bless, we will be blessed.

We were blessed. And it was a wonderful showing of God’s faithfulness to this group of folks and to our family as well. It was a wonderful confirmation that indeed, this is what we’re supposed to be doing. This is truly where God is leading us.

It’s going to happen, exactly when God wants it to happen. Nothing can keep us from believing.