Genesis 15:1 “After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying,"Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward."
After what things…..after Abram (Abraham) had offered up himself in battle to rescue Lot and after Abram offered up his wealth to the King of Salem the priest of the God Most High…..he offered both himself and his possessions would God remain faithful when he was busy giving all that he was away…..
I hope you all had the opportunity to see on Sunday that even during times of the worst of ourselves that God still remains Faithful. When God draws us to Himself and we allow Him into His place in our lives we must remember that His purpose is to give life, not death. If we move toward things that create death, which will in all likelihood be sin then His role is not to placate us or make us feel better (how can you make something that is dead feel better?) His role is to lead us back to life. If we are headed toward death do we really want that journey to it to be filled with events and feelings of success? If that were the case we would all joyfully continue on toward death! Thank goodness if we are headed toward death than the path we have chosen is filled with failures and heartaches, because in the midst of those failures and heartaches God is counting on us to say, “Hey, maybe I should turn around?”
OK, that’s not the road I wanted to head down, no pun intended. I want to encourage all of you that have heard God’s call, His call to a certain ministry within the body of Christ, a call to righteousness in your own personal morality and living, or a call to engage certain individuals around you in order to share the gospel of Christ. Whatever that call maybe, when it is a call of God, you can count on God being faithful to you during your pursuit of living out that call, “…Do not be afraid…I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
When Nicole and I knew that God desired us to enter His service in full time ministry one of the first steps we needed to take was to pursue a ministry education. We decided to attend Baptist Bible Graduate School of Theology in Springfield, Missouri. Our goals to get there were to sell our home in Methuen, MA, pay off a majority of our debt, get jobs in Missouri that would allow us to not incur anymore debt while in school and at the same time not have our daughter in daycare for too many hours a day and we wanted to move somewhere in Missouri that would be safe for our at the time 3 year old daughter Alex to play outside. This is what we began praying for each and every day and often times when we prayed for the items that surrounded our daughter tears would flow for we were so concerned that what we were doing would be harmful to her growth.
The things that began to happen clearly revealed to us why God’s words to Abraham thousands of years before are still applicable to us today. First off our home sold the very first weekend we put it on the market for more than we even placed it on the market for. I remember the realtor telling me it sold for more than we put it on the market for, which I had never heard of ever happening and I said, “Can you do that?” Which of course she resoundingly said of course you can! My stock options at work split and the stock price continued to rise after that so the income we earned from the sale of my options was far greater than we had budgeted. That extra income virtually was able to send us to Missouri debt free, pay for our first year of school in its entirety and gave us enough to buy a used car when we arrived in Missouri to allow us the freedom of being a two car family, which as we found out with our schedules had to happen.
That, we would find would just be the beginning of what our faithful God was about to do. We were still concerned with our living arrangements in Missouri. We weren’t able to afford to send us both out to Missouri to look into housing so Nicole flew out on her own to search for a place for us to live. Just weeks prior to her flight out to Missouri the church we were attending had a visiting pastor and his wife speaking. They found out Nicole was flying out and asked where she would be staying when she got out there. She was planning on staying at a hotel, but they informed us that their daughter and son-in-law lived out there as he was attending the college as well. They arranged for Nicole to stay with them for the time she was to be out there. This incredible couple ended up being very dear friends and an incredible blessing in our lives (we had not even prayed for new friendships…). Nicole looked at many places to live, but ended up finding a duplex on a dead-end street, with a field and cows right across the way. Plenty of room and safety for our daughter Alex to play in and for me being a small town boy, a field with cows was like a homecoming! However it didn’t stop here, for the woman that showed the duplex to Nicole found out why we were moving out there and she said something like this (this is all true!) my husband is a pastor and he just took a church in Kansas so we are going to be moving soon, he and I run this duplex complex, I show the duplex’s and he mows the grounds and we receive free rent. Seeing we are moving soon I can ask management if they would like to talk to the two of you and see if you want to take over for us and you won’t have to pay rent. Nicole said yes and long story short we did get that job and only paid rent for one month while we were there. One month.
As far as jobs go, well at this point are you even doubting that God stepped in on that as well? Nicole was able to get a job in which they were willing to let her work mornings and into the early afternoon (which was when I was at classes and Alex came with me and was in a daycare right on campus). I interviewed for a job at a Tax Firm and they asked me what hours I could work and no lie and I normally would never talk like this during an interview, but I knew what we needed so I said, well I can’t come in until sometimes around 1 pm on some days, but others not until around 4 pm (I explained my wife’s work situation and my classes) but I added, I’m more than willing to work up to 30 hours a week. I was waiting for them to say either you’re crazy or if you want to work for us you have to be here by a certain time. They said, sure that’s fine, as long as you put in 30 hours you can come in anytime between 1 and 4 and go from there. I can’t remember if I responded with, “Really?” or “Thank you” but it was clear that God was directing that interview.
There are many more stories from that trip alone, but I pray that you see that God is still faithful to those that follow His will today. He is still ever present and He still desires that we follow His Son and take on His righteousness.
He has called us to honor Him with our time, thus He will be faithful to provide the time we need. He has called us to serve Him with all our hearts, thus He will be faithful to provide us the ability and capacity to do so. He has called us to honor Him with our finances in tithes and offerings, thus He will be faithful to provide us the opportunities to earn a living and support our families and ourselves.
In all those blessings that our faithful God poured out into our lives it wasn’t a matter of Nicole and me simply praying and then sitting and waiting. We still had to go to work, take the flights to Missouri, meet with people, make arrangements, show duplexes (Nicole did this end of our free rent deal and showing duplexes was always at random times and random moments she always had to be ready), mow the grounds (I did this part of the free rent deal and it took 8 hours to mow and weed the property each week, 8 hours on a riding mower isn’t as fun as it looks in consistent 90 degree heat!) and of course keep up with the back and forth nature of our jobs, the demands of my schoolwork and still pour forth our lives into our daughter, oh and we served in the youth ministry at the church we attended, yet strangely with all that going on, I think it was the most peaceful time of our lives, seriously.
God is faithful. If you are living in sin, remember He is not going to be faithful in rewarding your sin, He is going to be faithful in reviving your life, so most likely you will not be seeing blessings, but rather the consequences of your sin taking its full impact on your life, because your brokenness is necessary in order for God’s favor to be shed back upon your life, because it will be in your brokenness that you see the need to live under His shield and you will find that He truly is your exceedingly great reward! If you know what God desires you to do, then do it! He is faithful to provide for it!
Questions to Ask Yourself:
1. When have you followed God’s call in your life and then watched how faithful He was in providing for you to live out that calling?
2. When have you not followed God’s call in your life and then watched how faithful He was in redirecting you to where He needed you to be?
Take some time and thank God this week for being a Faithful God.
Pastor e
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