Increased Faith

There are many, many stories from my trip to Ecuador.  Too many to tell.  They will be held in my heart and I know the Lord will bring them to my mind when He needs me to share them for His glory.  When a person asks about my trip, I don't know which story to share because there are too many.  So I don't share any.  Instead, I tell what God did for me on this trip.  Because God did send me there to show His love to the people I would be in contact with.  But He also intended this trip to draw me closer to Himself.  He is always drawing me closer.

I grew up in church, always in church.  I was very good compared to the others I chose to compare myself to.  I knew a lot about God and Jesus and the Bible, and I always had a great answer for any question about God or Jesus or the Bible.  But I didn't know God Himself.  I went to many Bible studies as an adult and maintained my "goodness," trying to please a God I didn't know how to please. 

When I was pregnant with Jackson, I attended a Bible study at our new church in Granbury.  Through that study (Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby), God showed me that He desires a relationship with me.  That was brand new information to me, but I couldn't forget it.  He didn't desire for me to know about Him, He wanted me to KNOW Him.  That was the first shift.  I began studying the Bible to know God, not just to know about Him.  It IS different.  God began to change me and to change the desires of my heart.  I began praying for myself as a mother, my marriage, my relationships...and seeking accountability and the prayer of others over those matters as well. 

God continued to change me over those years and about 3 years later, the second shift happened.  I desperately wanted God to be IT for me, enough for me, the ONE thing, my most important...but He wasn't.  I didn't know how to get to where I could give Him my very life, but I knew I wanted that very relationship with Him that He asks for.  So I just prayed that He would do whatever it took in my life, take whatever was in the way out of the way, ruin whatever He needed to ruin in my life so that I could know and trust Him completely.  It was a scary prayer.  It was a prayer that He answered.  First, He caused me to understand that my children are His that He has given to me *for a time* so that I can teach them about Him.  My parenting needed a radical change.  Then, He brought out some things in my marriage that rocked our relationship completely, leaving me clinging to God and no longer looking to the incredible man He gave me as a god.  Over time, He radically changed my thinking in regards to Jeff and our marriage.  Later, He gave us the opportunity to trust Him even more by asking us to take a student into our home that did fit our mold of a good Christian girl.  Through Heather, God opened our eyes to true faith and trust and forgiveness, the need to obey Him rather than do what the world says is safe, and filled us with compassion for the "least of these" in America.  After that, God removed some things that were keeping me a little too comfortable, making it too easy to not "need" what He had to give...things like my super awesome neighborhood where we felt safe, my friends that knew me well and supported me as a wife and mother, my accountability partners that were increasingly becoming my first line of defense instead of prayer, etc. 

It may sound a little extreme or that God was mean or that He was taking away all of my blessings or whatever.  But listen, I asked Him to do that.  I wanted anything gone that needed to go so that I could have more of HIM.  And because He desires to be everything to me, He was and is faithful to answer my prayer.  It does hurt to have things removed from my life.  No doubt.  I DO know pain.  But the pain and loss and hurt and disappointment...losing all the things I use to place my hope in...God used the ruin to bring me to my knees.  To help me to cling to Him, trust Him, know more of Him, love Him, rely on Him, hope in Him.  My hope, trust, faith, love, etc, is in the one, true, unchanging, almighty God.  He created the universe.  He created me.  I trust Him to do with me whatever He needs to do for His glory.  He is good. 

There are many things that I believed about God just from studying the Bible and the desire to know Him more.  I know He is all knowing, I know He is unchanging, I know there is one God over all the earth, I know He is everywhere all at once.  I know it even though I don't understand.  There are many things I had to believe just by faith.  But here's the beauty of why God sent me on that trip.  Remember the trip I was talking about way up there, several paragraphs ago?  God sent me to Ecuador so He could show me firsthand some things about Himself.

I believed God was all-knowing, but when we were in Fanny's home (read her story below), He showed me first-hand.  Only God knew exactly what Fanny needed and placed the one person in her home who could give that.  The Compassion people who made the assignments did not know Fanny's story or my friend's story.  God knew and he put them together.

I believed God works all things for His good, but in the moments with Belen (read Day 4), He showed me first-hand.  You see, I am not alone in the way Satan attacks my mind and makes me feel like an utter failure, ugly, worthless, alone, useless.  Satan is always attacking a woman's worth...many just don't admit it.  I admit it and I fight it.  I am not who Satan or this world would have me believe.  There have been many, many excrutiating battles where God was (and is) teaching me that truth.  But the pain of those moments were worth it when God used my experiences and the scripture weapons He gave me to fight with, to bring healing for another daughter of His. 

There are a lot of things God showed me first-hand that I use to have to believe by faith.  I am so grateful that He did that, just for me!  It's because I am His and He loves me and He has much to give me.  So, after all that, the main thing I took from this trip is a higher view of God.  He showed me more of Himself than I feel like I can handle.  Like Isaiah, after seeing the King, the Lord Almighty (chapter 6), I feel ruined.  I am far from holy.  Far from good.  What should I do now?  It's hard to process knowing how incredibly wonderful and indescribable God is, and how far I am from that holiness. 

I know, though, that He will continue to grow me and change me and mature me.  He will give me patience.  He will renew my mind so my tongue will be controlled.  He will give me gentleness.  He will fill me with compassion and love for the lost, for the broken, for the hurting.  Of course He will!