Mar and I were having one of our many ‘round table discussions’ the other day, this one regarding ministry concerns. Like so many other people these days, our discussion was specifically in regard to finances. To tell the truth, doing what we do, our income fluctuates greatly depending on whether we get a ‘love offering’ or a ‘like offering’, what gas prices are, how much product we sell, and how many bookings we have in a given month. We could never have appreciated just how much money it takes to not only run a full time ministry on the road, but to maintain a home that we are often away from, while birthing new material through expensive CD production… until… well, here we are!
Now, I am the ‘big picture schemer’ of the two of us, whereas Mar is the ‘micro-organizer’. It kinda works out great for me, because I get to dream big, but she is the one who tries to figure out how to make the big dreams happen. That being the case, she is more prone to be aware of and worry about all the … well… the micro…. things and bring them to my attention. This is what led to the round table discussion regarding our finances.
We ended up discussing worry, and how worry leads to fear, and fear to inaction. Our conversation then naturally turned from worry and fear to their opposite: faith. I’ve heard preachers say “Faith is a verbâ€. The truth is, you cannot “do†faith, as if it were a verb. Rather, faith makes you do (James 2:18-26). Mar, always the logical type, said that it’s all well and good to say “Don’t worry. Have Faith!”, but you can’t just “have faithâ€, and therefore stop worrying. You’ve got to have faith in some thing.
Now we got stumped. What must the specific object of our faith be when we are tempted to indulge worry and fear? God, of course, but specifically, what part of His nature? We combed our Bible verse memories and after a few minutes, the verse “Perfect love casts out fear†came to mind. We had never really understood what this verse meant, practically speaking. We got to talking about it, and realized that the only one with perfect love is God. God loves us perfectly — absolutely, with nothing held back. Because he loves us perfectly, He has a perfect plan for us, a plan meant for our greatest good. The problem is that “His ways are higher than our ways†— a perfect plan cannot be understood by imperfect beings. As beloved children of an omniscient Father, we can rest assured that regardless of where we find ourselves, God is active in our pain and in our problems, and will (not “can”, or “might”, but WILL) bring about our greatest good.
Until the day comes when God Himself will take us by the hand and tell us what His plan was and why He allowed what He allowed in our lives, we cannot know all that He is doing. But we need not live in worry and fear because we don’t know exactly what He is doing. We can rest in the knowledge that He loves us with a love that knows no limits and has no dilemmas. He has always been and always will be faithful. Period. How simple is that?
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not. As Thou has been, Thou forever will be.
See y’all down the road,
M&M
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