From Security to Faith
Brian
One of the biggest themes that I’ve been wrestling with lately is faith. Faith is one of those things that I don’t like to ask God to increase (also humility and patience fall in this category), because He is always more than willing and it will never be a fun process. My wife and I had planned on going back overseas at some point this next year to work alongside Luv-Luv, and a few months ago I really began to pray about this and ask God to increase our faith as we look towards going. As I’ve prayed over the past few months, we’ve seen a lot of doors open and made great connections both in the US and in South East Asia. Our last board meeting ended with some of us talking about how we are much farther down the road than we ever planned to be at this point. Great things are happening and it seems like God is moving.
And then I lost my job. Like I said before, never ask for more faith.
It has actually been a huge blessing. Not just the ‘it’s a huge blessing’ that you tell people to make yourself feel better, but really, it has been. The church that I worked for and I parted on good terms, and I’m now free to do what I love, which is being involved in Underground Coffee and getting back overseas. One of the biggest questions I’ve had all year is “When am I going to have time to connect with all of these people and churches that I’ve met?” Now I have all the time I need.
As I’ve continued praying through all of this, I’ve come to the realization that for the past several years I’ve been operating out of a position of security and not of faith. I’ve been perfectly safe to sit back here in America and be involved with UCI, collecting a paycheck from my real job, and not worrying about having a roof over my head. All of those things are important, and as my wife will tell you, they WILL be in place before we head to Asia, but now we have to step out on faith to see it happen. We’ve always said that first we’ll get the money lined up, then we’ll commit to go. It seems that God is flipping that and saying, “Commit to go and the money will line up.”
It is a very different place to operate out of faith instead of security. I’m not looking at this with haste or panic (at least not yet), but instead looking at it with the faith that God has brought us this far and He’ll provide for us as we need it.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1