Encouraged

Worrying comes very easily to me. Perhaps it's because I come from a family of worriers. I think it goes deeper than that. I think that worry is a symptom of a disease I like to call Distrust of Almighty God-itis. To me, worrying basically means that I don't trust God to be in control of something. I don't trust that He has it all in His hand. When I worry, I doubt Him and that does no good whatsoever. After all, the Scriptures say, "So Jesus answered and said to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, "Be removed and be cast into the sea," it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.'" (Matt 21:21-22 NKJV)

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a "name it, claim it theologian." (I'm not any kind of theologian actually.) But I do believe that God wants us to come to Him with our needs and desires. He created us to have needs and gives us certain desires and I believe that He wants to take care of us. "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17 NKJV) "If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" (Matt 7:11 NKJV)

So here is my dilemma: when I worry, I am not having faith and I am doubting, contradicting Matthew 21:21. When I worry, I am not asking in prayer believing that I will receive, contradicting Matthew 21:22. I've been telling myself these things for the past several weeks. But for some reason, my head and heart aren't making the connection and while my head understands all these things, my heart is having a difficult time completely believing.

Then something amazing happened. Yesterday we had a luncheon at work and my boss's wife (who is without a doubt one of the sweetest, gentlest, most godly woman I know) was asked to bring a devotional for us. She chose to base her sermonette on the last half of Luke 18:1, "...that men always ought to pray and not lose heart..." When I worry, I'm losing heart in God. I become discouraged... But the cool thing is that I really think that the first part of that little passage is the remedy for losing heart. If we are always praying, always in a state of communication with God, we will be listening for His voice of confirmation and we will hear it and not lose heart. Even with these words ringing in my ears at my desk later that afternoon, I continued to fret over what God's will is and whether or not I've discerned it correctly. I was thinking about this very thing when part of a verse popped into my head and I stopped what I was doing. The passage is Eph 3: 20-21 and it says, "Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Jesus Christ to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."
....... WOW. If that wasn't a direct mandate to stop fretting, doubting and worrying about provision for GO TELL, then I'm not sure what would be.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my heart with you today. I've only got 6 more days at my job and about 20 days till I leave. I'm getting very, very excited. I cannot wait to see what glory God will get in this. Please continue to pray for me, specifically that I will not doubt Adonai Nissi (The LORD my miracle). Love you!!