Yesterday I shared the first part of a faith-filled experience from earlier this week. {Here’s part one — read it first, pweas.} I’d been convicted that we needed to change the way we were giving, and we had a big check to write, and writing it was going to take faith. When I talked with the Hubs about it, it was pretty much awesome. And scary. Because

He didn’t feel convicted about the issue the way that I did, but this is what he said:

“I don’t feel convicted about this the way you do, but I trust your faith and I trust that you hear from God. If you really feel like this is what we are supposed to do, then we’ll do it.”

{Am I blessed or what?}

We’d talked about it on Saturday night, decided to pray about it again in the morning and see what we felt we were supposed to do, and those were the Hubs’ words on the way to church.

I felt grateful to have such a cool Hubs, and at the same time nervous because it was a big deal and I felt like the ball was in my court. So to speak. {Do I use a ridiculous amount of sports analogies?}

In the end, we wrote the big check in faith. I felt so certain it was the leading of the Lord, and I just couldn’t deny it. I knew it was risky because we might not have enough to pay bills later or maybe even to buy food {is that fear talking or what?} — it was giving first and trusting for the rest.

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{Still learning to do this faith-walk…I think I make that face sometimes too.}

As we settled into the car for the drive home on Sunday, HH looked at me and said “You were right.”

I asked, “What are you talking about?”

He directed me to take a look at the notes he’d made during church. (I was in the nursery watching the babies so I didn’t hear the sermon.) This scripture was waiting for me to read it:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine. {Proverbs 3:5-10}

Even though we didn’t know exactly how things were going to work out, we had fresh encouragement from the Lord that they would. And I was so deeply convinced that God was speaking, that I determined in my heart to believe Him even if things didn’t work out the way I wanted them to.

Like the Hebrew boys who faced the furnace and said “Even if our God doesn’t save us, we still won’t bow down and worship you, O King,” my heart was saying, “Lord, I will trust you, even if the furnace is in front of me, and there isn’t a deliverance in the plan. I’ll do what you say.”

Faith, the evidence of things you don’t see yet…

The next morning, things got off to their normal start… the Monday song, breakfast with the boys, getting ready for the day, scooting the Bear to preschool and running an errand on the way home.

The Hubs came into the kitchen mid-morning and asked if I wanted to hear some good news. (He works from home on Mondays.)

“I’m always up for good news!” was my of-course-spill-the-beans-fast reply.

“We were just given a special gift of [thus-and-such].”

{Those brackets are just protecting you guys from knowing the numbers and then calculating our income and possibly feeling sorry for us.}

But that thus-and-such? That thus-and-such was about $90 more than the number we’d written on that check the day before.

Even though the gift had been sent to our ministry account a week and a half before hand, it was only that morning that HH was working on the payroll and saw it.

God wanted us to step out in faith when we couldn’t see the resolution. But He saw it already, had provision on the way — we just needed to trust in Him.

I see it more clearly now, I think, perhaps more than any of the times I’ve held on to faith before. Taking action based on faith is being absolutely confident in something you cannot see, or touch or feel or logically know for sure about yet.

Trust hurts sometimes. It reminds us that we’re not in control of our own lives. Each of these trials forces us to decide whether or not we believe the God who actually is in control is good.

If life has you in the fire and you feel like you’re holding on to faith right now, I encourage you to keep holding on. Because your actions might not make sense to world — but it is absolutely reasonable to put faith in the only thing about this earth that is only always ever faithful. That glorious One who dwells outside of time…the one who created this earth.

Though we may not be out of the woods yet (and I may still have another story to tell about this) my faith muscles feel a little bit stronger today. Thankfully it’s not about my ability to have faith, it’s about my certainty that He is absolutely faithful.

xCC