God is always reliable. Hes just not very predictable. Jon and I have learned that already this year as weve begun gathering the funds that will provide for our Romania trip. Remember how I wrote about God providing through our income tax refund when we went to a Romania three years ago? (Of course you dont. It was THREE. YEARS. AGO. I dont expect anyone to cling to my every post like that. But if you want to indulge me and find it on our group page, go right ahead.:) Anyway, ever since the year we got married, weve seen our income tax refund used as seed money for a mission trip. Like clockwork, the amount and the timing of the refund were nearly perfect for initial deposits for that summers mission adventure. It was great. As we prayed about going back to Romania together this year, and Jon tried to figure out the logistics and finances, I found myself glibly trusting that our income tax refund would pull through for us again as it had in the past. It didnt happen this year. We barely got our taxes done in time for the initial $3,000 deposit deadline, and when we *did* complete them, the return was nothing short of abysmal. Wed never been in a situation before where coming up with the deposit was in question. It was a little bit humbling. It was especially humbling when I realized how misplaced my trust had been. You see, I had gotten used to God working in a certain way. So much so, that I began trusting in the method of His *provision* rather than the fact that He is *Provider.* Not cool. There are so many instances in the Bible where God offers the same miracle or guidance to people in completely different ways, just to make sure we always turn to Him, not some textbook example of how God does x, y, or z. Gods faithfulness apparently doesnt confine Him to a limited, unvarying bag of tricks. You would think that I had already had my fill of mission trip life lessons that revolved around such basic concepts as Gods got it, and doesnt need your help. Nope. It looks like I needed a remedial class this time around. And I guess I also needed to learn that reliable and predictable are totally not synonymous. I hope that one sticks around for awhile. It looks like God has something different in mind for this years trip, and I am looking forward to Him showing off His abilities. Without the help of Uncle Sam.
Posted on: Thu, 03 Apr 2014 02:24:53 +0000
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