Years ago God gave us a dream of opening up our home to
abandoned children/teens, and now we are getting to live out this dream because
He is faithful as we choose to live in obedience! The next step for our family is to build a
home here on the Footprints base so that we have the proper living quarters to
bring in more children and multiply our family size. After the proper classes and training, we
will take on the role of “foster/house parents”. We’ve been praying about which children to “unofficially”
adopt into the Mason Family, and the Lord has already highlighted 2 of them to
us. We feel an urgency in our spirits to
move forward with building a home soon, so we would greatly appreciate your
prayers over our next steps – that we would be led with His wisdom. It has always been a dream of mine to design
and build my own home, so I’m pretty excited that God is giving me the
opportunity to do just that. The cost of
building a home here in South Africa is not the same as in the States, but
regardless, there is a cost attached. We’re
getting out of the boat KNOWING that God will provide everything that we need
to make this happen. We know He doesn’t ask
us to do something radical, seemingly impossible, without providing the means
to do it. BUT, we first have to take
that initial step in trusting Him and being obedient.
God has been speaking to me a lot about faith and what it actually means.
During my last flights on my way home to Africa from my dad’s funeral
back in September, the Lord directed me to read Hebrews 11. It recounts many examples of people of great
faith in the old days… Noah built an ark
because He trusted the Lord when He said a flood was coming even though there
was no sign of it. Abraham left his home
without knowing where he was going because He trusted that God would lead Him
and provide for him once he arrived there.
To me, faith can be described by Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your
understanding. In all your ways
acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.”
Simply put faith = TRUST. The
way we live our life truly reveals just how much we truly trust God. If you live a “safe” (i.e. logical, no-risk) life,
maybe you’re missing out on God’s purposes for you. Have you ever felt like God was asking you to
do something and then you reasoned it away because it wasn’t logical, seemed
impossible or didn’t make sense? If God
told you to sell all of your possessions and then use the money to feed the
poor, would you do it or would you say, “But what about me Lord? How are you going to take care of me? How am I going to live without this or that?” The God I know isn’t someone who calls you to
do something and then leaves you stranded or doesn’t provide for your
needs. However, your perspective on what
exactly your needs are might need a little adjusting. What if God asked you to give away one of
your vehicles to a homeless guy on the street, and you reasoned it away with
the thoughts, “But what if this homeless guy is ungrateful for the gift or just
uses it to go buy beer instead of to get a job?” When did God ever say we were responsible for
other peoples’ responses or actions?
NEVER. We are responsible for our
connection with Him and Him alone. As a
parent, I am responsible for teaching my children truth, but ultimately they
must choose how they’re going to respond.
It is so freeing knowing that I don’t have to control my children or
manipulate them into making the right choice, which is something I see often in
this world and have been guilty of at times myself in the past. Instead, I get to model making good choices
for them, ask for grace and forgiveness when I mess up, and then watch them
make good choices because they “want” to – not because they “have” to or are
fearful that if they don’t they will be judged, punished or won’t be accepted.
Do you have faith for things that are logical or do you have
radical faith to do something that doesn’t make sense to you and you can’t see
the “big picture” but you know how to hear God’s voice and trust Him clearly to
act without fully understanding why? The
serpent asked Eve, “Did God really say not to eat…..” Since the beginning, Satan has been
instilling doubt in man’s mind and causing confusion and deception. Adam and Eve lived an alternative life to the
one God originally had planned for them in the Garden of Eden all because of
their disobedience and lack of trust in Him when they didn’t understand the
bigger picture. They had a moment where
they allowed the enemy to get them to doubt, and look at what the results
were…. Although, thank God He had a plan
to restore man’s relationship with Him through Jesus.
Hebrews 3:14 says, “For if we are faithful to the end,
trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that
belongs to Christ. BUT, never forget the
warning: Today you must listen to His voice.
Don’t harden your hearts against Him……”
You can’t obey God and walk in faith if you don’t know how
to hear His voice and know how He speaks to you personally. If you’re not hearing God’s voice, you’re
either hearing your own or Satan’s, and yes even through man. You can even hear God’s voice and still live
in unbelief because hearing and acting upon His voice are two different
things. Faith requires action. Faith isn’t just a set of doctrines that one
believes in. Faith is living out your
trust in God. Living = an action word.
In Hebrews 3:16-19 – God says that those who live in unbelief (who disobey Him)
were not allowed to enter His rest.
Examine your life – is there an area in your life where you’re not “at
rest”? Maybe it’s with finances, a
relationship, a job, etc. Could it be
that you are not at rest because either a) you haven’t been obedient to what
the Lord has asked you to do with $, relationship, job, etc. OR b) you haven’t
fully surrendered those things over to God trusting that He’s got your best
interest at heart? Lack of trust in God prevents
us from receiving His best.
As we are living out our own personal journey of faith, we would
greatly appreciate it if you’d join us in prayer for the following:
1) God’s blueprints being downloaded to us for our
new home
2) Wisdom on where and when to build
3) Clear direction with our finances, as we want to
be good stewards
4) Names and number of children to bring into our
family
No comments:
Post a Comment