Lessons learned in the hard times. Lesson 2

            Last time we considered that when God calls he also equips and enables us to do what he wants us to do.  This next key lesson took much longer for me to learn.

            We went out to Japan trusting God to provide for our daily needs and God used many ways and many people to provide for us.  Over sixteen years we saw our Father generously give us all that we needed. A verse that means a lot to me is Matthew 6:33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  This is a great promise and although conditional in that we need to seek God’s kingdom and righteousness first, we can believe that God will provide for our needs as we desire to do his will. 

            However, our Father needed to continually remind me of these lessons and to take me deeper into trusting in His word.  We returned to UK in 1992 for educational reasons.  In a miraculous way we had been provided with a house in Swindon a few years earlier.  From 1991, our two oldest stayed with friends in Hereford where they entered secondary school mid way.  We felt that as the girls were already settling into a school there it would be better if they stayed and we moved to Hereford.  It was at a time when the housing market was flat and there was very little movement.  This was a challenge to our faith.  We had arrived back in June and we had hoped to move before the new school year started in the September. 

            There are many things I could say about that move, but one is that the Lord worked out the schooling matter in a quite remarkable way.  All the primary schools were full.  We had an appointment soon after school started in September with the Head of a primary school.  At the start of the interview the school situation hadn’t changed and there were no places.  During the interview a message came through to say that one of the girls had moved away with her family and we were offered the vacancy! Consequently, that opened up the way for us to make a renewed offer on a house in Hereford.  We home schooled the youngest for one more year but the others had been provided for. 

            Some months had passed and income had dried up and it was difficult finding a job or retrain.  We had a mortgage and five young people at home.  Eventually God brought me to that point where I just had to come to Him and take Matthew 6:33 and trust our Father to keep his word as He had promised.  I prayed, “This is your responsibility to provide for our needs as you promised.  You brought us back to the UK and we are completely in your hands.  It is our desire to live and serve you in whatever way you want.”  Through this experience our loving Father helped me see that I should not be looking to others to provide for us which is what I had been doing but rather look to Him. I discontinued actively looking for a job after that and trusted the Lord to provide work or meet our needs in other ways. 

            These lessons don’t just suddenly happen, rather God was preparing me through many steps to get to this point where I needed to act in response to what God was teaching me.  I have many notes in my journal over the previous months that show that I was being challenged by many situations leading to that decision of trusting God with finances.  For example, one entry made on the day we had our interview with the Head of the school states, “I have been thinking and praying this morning about the whole question of trusting God rather than trying to do things in my own way.  I felt perhaps our low offers and trying to get the house for the cheapest amount was my effort to try and do it in my way.”   We then went ahead with an increased offer on the house.  On the day the papers for the mortgage were being filled in we received a very substantial gift which was totally unexpected.  What an amazing encouragement to know that when we step out in faith trusting God, He is there to provide, often in surprising ways!  

            The second lesson of three is that God can be trusted with our finances, and as we seek his kingdom and righteousness first, we can depend on God to provide for our needs (not our wants).  For the following twelve years or so that we were in Hereford and then Newent, God always provided for the needs we had when bills were due or expenses needed to be met.  I found a Journal entry from two years after this which states, “It’s not whether we will follow God’s way if He provides but follow God’s way because it is God’s way and leave the responsibility to Him to provide.”  No, it hasn’t always been easy, and there are times we have worried, but in the end, trusting God with this area of our lives proves to be the best way to avoid the anxiety and stress that can come when we think that it is dependent upon us to provide.  It is an on going decision to keep trusting God as we are often tempted to go back to trusting our own means to provide for our needs.  As we trust Him daily His peace fills our hearts and we can rest assured that we are in good hands.