Everyone is asking us how long we will be in town. That is a good question. Originally we were thinking we would be here for about 3 weeks and then we’d be ‘out there’ again. But we also were thinking Tim was going to have a source of revenue while we were travelling that, bottom line, just wasn’t as much as we thought it would be and simply isn’t enough to sustain us on the road. So, now what? Being back in familiar territory and back with my family yesterday and back in warmer weather (even though there’s a cold front here it is STILL warmer than where we’ve been) has really been pulling at me. So last night Tim and I did a lot of talking and praying for confirmation of what God wants. I woke up this morning to my Bible reading in Hebrews 10 and 11 and sensed, once again, His confirmation of His will in what we are doing. That hasn’t changed. Verses like these out of Hebrews 10, verses 35-39 lept out at me:
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while,
"He who is coming will come and will not delay.
But my righteous one will live by faith.
And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him."
But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.
And then in Hebrews 11, the great faith chapter, it says in verses 8-10 & 13:
By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents (he was camping!), as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God
All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
I LOVE verse 8, ‘even though he did not know where he was going’. That’s us!!! I had a great talk this morning with a sweet friend who was so encouraging. I was that we still don’t have the platform for ministry to families that we thought we would have by now, which was another factor in me questioning if we should go ‘out there’ again without definite plans of how we would help familes. She said she has sensed all along that this trip was preparing us for that platform and that the platform would come at the end of our 1 year journey, not in the midst. I had never even considered that. Either way, I have no doubt God has told us to go, and as I've heard before, where God guides, He provides, and that is what we are believing He will do. So, that is our status. We're here until God provides for us to go 'out there' again. We are praying and listening and looking forward to seeing how God does something that looks impossible to me. I leave you with another great verse from Hebrews 11, verse 1:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.