You know, I'm not sure I understand why I'm always taken by surprise when God paves the way for me to do what He's called me to do, but I am. I don't know why I'm taken aback when He provides exactly what I need completely exactly when I need it. I don't get why I sell Him short by worrying and fretting and doubting Him. I don't know why I do all these things when time after time after time He does what He says He will do, when He is true to His character and does not call me to something He has not planned out.
All that to say that, once again, God has shown me that He is in control and He will provide when He calls us to do things. Yesterday I received the bulk of my support for GO TELL. I'm still slightly in shock. I thank each of you who have been praying for me and ask that you would continue to do so. I will be leaving Texas on June 3. (If you received a letter that said I'm leaving on the 4th, I'm sorry about that. I scheduled my flight for the wrong day!) I'll be back July 19. I am so excited about the weeks between those dates. God is going to do some AWESOME stuff this summer and I cannot wait to see His hands move. It's going to be astounding! :-)
Well, that's all I have for now. I'll update later. Please keep me in your prayers and have a blessed day. Love you!!
~Allison~
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
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!!
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!!
Friday, May 2, 2008
Letting Go
Hi everyone. It's been a while. I hope all is well for you.
I've been having a tough time the last few weeks, mostly because I can't seem to grasp that God's will is perfect and He Himself is sovereign. It's interesting to me that I have seen God provide miraculously in so many ways on so many different occasions, and yet, again I doubt His faithfulness. Perhaps this is just what sinful nature does. Perhaps this doubting of Almighty God is simply the result of a heart that has been blackened by sin time after time. But there are no excuses for doubting. God has more than adequately displayed His power, not only in creation but in my own life.
I was struggling with this most strongly last night. I've got 4 more weeks left before it's time to leave home and go to GA. I'm still rather short on the funds that I need. Okay... very short. I've been praying that God will provide and my prayers have sounded like this, "God you know I need this, when are you going to take care of it? I'm starting to get worried because it's looking like You might not come through. God I know this is Your will for me, so umm... whenever you get arouond to taking care of it, that would be good. Okaythanksbye."
Prayers like that will get you nowhere, in my opinion, because they are all about us and not about Him. My focus was stuck on the fact that I want to do GO TELL, and since I've decided that I want that, it must be what God wants, right? WRONG.
I don't think that God minds giving us gifts and sharing His wealth with us, after all, the Bible says that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. What I think God does mind is us coming to Him like He's obligated to do what we want Him to do the moment we "ask" Him to do it. So I changed my approach to petitioning God for provision, and insight into His will, and let me tell you something that I found amazing: the moment I finished praying for God's will to take root in my heart over my own, for God to glorify His name through the life He's given me, for God to take GO TELL and only give it back if it was way He would get the most glory, I was peaceful. For the first time in a few days, I had a calm spirit that was not fretting over funds. God quieted my heart... and in that quiet, God said, "I have taken care of it, my daughter. I will take care of you."
Please don't mistake me and think that I think that I literally heard God speak. That's not what I'm saying here. I'm saying that God spoke to my heart. And when I "heard" the words, "I have taken care of it," I did not immediately wonder who had paid for my summer, or how GO TELL is going to work out, I knew that He meant that He has already orchestrated His will. My life is taken care of, and He is the One doing the caring.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. Please continue to pray with me that God's will be done, and that He gains the utmost glory from my life.
I've been having a tough time the last few weeks, mostly because I can't seem to grasp that God's will is perfect and He Himself is sovereign. It's interesting to me that I have seen God provide miraculously in so many ways on so many different occasions, and yet, again I doubt His faithfulness. Perhaps this is just what sinful nature does. Perhaps this doubting of Almighty God is simply the result of a heart that has been blackened by sin time after time. But there are no excuses for doubting. God has more than adequately displayed His power, not only in creation but in my own life.
I was struggling with this most strongly last night. I've got 4 more weeks left before it's time to leave home and go to GA. I'm still rather short on the funds that I need. Okay... very short. I've been praying that God will provide and my prayers have sounded like this, "God you know I need this, when are you going to take care of it? I'm starting to get worried because it's looking like You might not come through. God I know this is Your will for me, so umm... whenever you get arouond to taking care of it, that would be good. Okaythanksbye."
Prayers like that will get you nowhere, in my opinion, because they are all about us and not about Him. My focus was stuck on the fact that I want to do GO TELL, and since I've decided that I want that, it must be what God wants, right? WRONG.
I don't think that God minds giving us gifts and sharing His wealth with us, after all, the Bible says that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. What I think God does mind is us coming to Him like He's obligated to do what we want Him to do the moment we "ask" Him to do it. So I changed my approach to petitioning God for provision, and insight into His will, and let me tell you something that I found amazing: the moment I finished praying for God's will to take root in my heart over my own, for God to glorify His name through the life He's given me, for God to take GO TELL and only give it back if it was way He would get the most glory, I was peaceful. For the first time in a few days, I had a calm spirit that was not fretting over funds. God quieted my heart... and in that quiet, God said, "I have taken care of it, my daughter. I will take care of you."
Please don't mistake me and think that I think that I literally heard God speak. That's not what I'm saying here. I'm saying that God spoke to my heart. And when I "heard" the words, "I have taken care of it," I did not immediately wonder who had paid for my summer, or how GO TELL is going to work out, I knew that He meant that He has already orchestrated His will. My life is taken care of, and He is the One doing the caring.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. Please continue to pray with me that God's will be done, and that He gains the utmost glory from my life.
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