Which requires more faith? {Celebration testimony part 2}
Brexit lost us US $18,000 towards our new church centre overnight. You can read all about that in part 1. Shock and faith ran at each other at full speed the following morning.
There had been no way to transfer the money earlier so there was no negligence involved and whilst Brexit had been a big surprise to not just the UK but to most of the world, it was not a surprise to God. He could have easily moved things along a day earlier if He had wanted to.
So what next? God obviously had a plan on all this, but what was it? Do we contact everyone we know and ask them to pray and prayerfully consider helping make up the difference? Do we contact individuals and churches we know personally and ask them to prayerfully consider if they had a role? Do we do nothing and just wait to see what God does?
George Muller came to mind. He was a German missionary to England in the 1800s who cared for over 10,000 orphans. He is famous amongst Christian circles for the fact that he never asked anyone except God to meet the needs of the orphans. There were times where the children would lay the table and sit down ready to eat and there would be no food to give them. They would pray and thank God for His provision and then the doorbell would ring and a baker and a milk man would bring fresh supplies for that day. Could it be God was asking us to not tell anyone about the need outside the church here and to just trust Him?
Is it strange that I felt excited? Ok, Lord. I like that idea, but am I not just being lazy? To be honest, asking people for money is not my favourite thing to do. Even letting people know we are struggling is not fun - I know people get bored of prayer requests for provision - so could it just be me wanting to avoid the shame of having to bring this need to light?
But then, which requires more faith? Did it require more faith to contact others in my own strength or to allow God to do it? Didn’t His word also say: ‘Seek first the Kingdom and everything else will be added to you?’ Didn’t it also say, ‘Stop striving and know that I am God?’
I was becoming more convinced that this might be the Holy Spirit speaking but I wanted Him to confirm this ‘do nothing but pray and ask God’ plan.
I told Mark. He was unsure and obviously needed time to pray about it. He said he wondered if it required him more faith to share about the need with others than to just do nothing. What if we did nothing and we were meant to do something and the money didn’t come through?
I got on with homeschool. Every morning we try and have a read-aloud time where we read several books or chapters of books together. One of the books we had been reading for the last month chapter by chapter in June was ‘Hero Tales: A Family Treasury of True Stories from the Lives of Christian Heroes’ by Dave & Neta Jackson’. As I turned over the page to get to the day’s reading I laughed. The story was all about George Muller!
George Muller had a particular conviction when it came to support raising, which was his own personal conviction, not a theology in itself. Once he was offered regular monthly support and he graciously turned it down because he did not personally want to ever become dependent on anything other than God on a day-to-day basis. His attitude is humbling and inspiring at the same time!
And whilst I am not ready to write to all our supporters to decline their help, nor believe that is what God is asking us to do at this time, I love George’s attitude that God will provide what we need as we need it - we only need to ask specifically and trust.
And so we asked God to specifically meet the need for the extra money for the building. And we trusted that He would meet it. We told our local church community (about 30 committed adults) about the situation and asked them to pray but we decided we would not ask anyone outside of Peru or tell our supporters and prayer list the details of our current situation. God was going to have to come through! There was no way that we or any members of our community could get hold of $18,000 just like that no matter what we sold. God would have to make it happen miraculously! And we were both nervous and excited waiting to find out how!
“You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it.”
Part 3 coming later in the week!
This testimony is part of a month long series on the spiritual discipline of celebration! It is part of a year of embracing grace through spiritual disciplines, which you can read about here.
