Yes, we’re moving again, this time to Kyrgyzstan, a place Jonathan calls “interesting”. I don’t like moving; I don’t like going to strange places. I don’t like all the packing up and all the other things that need to be done. I don’t like finding a home for my cat, Cindy – mostly because it’s very difficult to do. It also means the end of my coasting. I have to live day by day again. It means I have to trust God for every detail. I wish I could do that. God designs these impossibly difficult situations in which we have no other choice but to trust. Phillip calls it “God backing us into a corner”. Seems like it ought to get easier, as I’ve done this before. But the circumstances are never exactly the same. He alters it so that we have to exercise our faith again.
Does exercised faith make you strong?
It seems only to point out my weaknesses and failure to trust. After all, I’ve had the experience of God turning something difficult into a blessing. Going to Poland was not easy, but in the end it was a blessing.
I sound like such a whiner and complainer. I ought to be grateful for the opportunity. How many house-bound believers unable to walk or even get out of bed would give their eye teeth to take my place? And yet, all I do is worry and whine. What did my Muslim friend, Pembe say? “We should see every change that comes to us as something positive, as an opportunity.” Why can’t I do that? Her wisdom is truth, but why can’t I seem to manage it?
Change is not easy. It destroys your routine and forces you to adapt to what is different, new and not always easy to understand. God made us to need structure and limits, but sometimes He redefines them. And while we’re trying to work out the new structure, we’ve nothing to hold onto but Him. Which is probably why He redefines them from time to time – to remind us that we’re to hold onto Him and not to rely on our own definitions of our structure and limits. He moves us around now and again so that we remember where our security should come from.
But as He moves us, God also gives us promises. “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” (Mat. 19:29) A hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life! It isn’t temporary houses or lands which God promises here, but it will be eternal riches that I can take all the way to the eternal home He has prepared especially for me.
©2000 Thrive
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