Friday, September 9, 2011

Perhaps I'm not as "great" at blogging as I previously predicted.....

Well, be sure to thank "Praying Medic" from FB for finally getting me to update this blog! I've been saying I'll update for the past month when people have asked me, but he wanted to share other people's blogs on his Facebook page so his readers would be encouraged and I posted my link and said "yup, I gotta update it now, don't I?" Haha, it's not that I don't enjoy writing, because actually I really do..... I think it's just the TIME that it takes me. Anyway, here we go!

A lot has happened since the last post. God continues to bless me (as He does ALL His children) in ways that amaze me :) So I'm going to start by speaking of more recent things and we'll see if I opt to make this super lengthy or not.....

(on a side note: July 21st-24th the Power and Love Conference was here in CO Springs, my friend Dawn flew out here to see me and to see Todd White, Dan Mohler and Bob Hazlett at this conference and she and I were changed FOREVER, wow, talk about powerful.... I should probably do a post just on some of the truths we learned from these awesome men of GOD.)

Ok, finances.... oh finances..... Andrew just spoke to us on Finances Thursday at school. It was powerful. One of the things he said that struck me was "if you aren't faithful with little, you won't be faithful with much" He was referring to Luke 16:10. He spoke about how trusting God with your finances is the smallest use of your faith. It should be step 1 in our Christian walk. If we can't trust God with our finances, how can we trust Him for healing, deliverance, job provision etc. We've got sowing and reaping which is a proven tactic when it comes to finances, so we need to be trusting God with money before we can TRULY trust God with anything else. Andrew spoke about how our hearts are attached to our wallets. We're always fearful that someone might take our money and it's hard for us to give it away, especially when we think we need it most.

Well, I moved out here to Colorado 2 months ago. I had saved money from my great teaching job this past year, so when I first got here I was thinking "oh this is fine, I trust God, it's going to all work out." Really though, I wasn't trusting God in that sense, I was trusting the number in my bank account. I KNEW that I had enough money for a few months. The month of July was a breeze, it was gone before I knew it. I felt confident with that "large" number in my checking account. Now I knew I was going to pay for the first year of Charis Bible College in cash, so technically that amount was spoken for, but still the number deceived me because once I paid the tuition, and got my last check from my teaching job..... I realized quite quick that this wasn't going to last me like I thought. I trusted in the wrong thing. I didn't trust in God. So I determined to change. After I paid some bills, I looked at that number and did some quick math and realized "hmmm I better go find a job." Well I searched in apparently "all the wrong places" because after 3 good weeks of applying places and not getting hired my lightning fast mind, as Andrew would say, realized something was wrong. I asked the Lord what I should do and I heard Him tell me "just rest and stop looking". Pffffff that wasn't what I wanted to hear. So I kinda justified myself to the Lord saying "well ok God, if you've got that perfect job for me, then cool, but it's not going to hurt if I still keep loooooking.....". Wow, what a waste of my time that was, note to self: listen to God next time. Looking for a job, when you're not supposed to be looking for a job, is a major let down. I knew I wouldn't be hired at any of these places because in my heart God had told me to rest and to stop looking. Somewhere in the beginning of this 3-4 week process, my roommate had forwarded me an add from Craigslist looking for tutors. I had told the Lord I wanted nothing to do with teaching this year because I was burnt out. Well, usually when you tell the Lord "I won't do blah blah blah, He has you do that." haha, and really it's because you know in your heart He's leading you to do "that" but your flesh doesn't want to. God blessed me with the ability to teach, so duh, makes sense He'd use me in that here :) So I applied to be a tutor because I looked at the hourly rate compared to the hourly rate of the "other" jobs on Craigslist and was like "well yeah my degree might as well pay for itself here...". I got a reply right away saying this company was interested in me. I set up an interview and was hired on the spot. It's a "temporary" tutoring job, so I continued looking on Craigslist and found yet another tutoring company, applied with them, they offered me a job. I went into Wells Fargo, chatted with the bank teller, found out her daughter needs a tutor and gave her my number. So, yeah God is providing, but not in the way that I thought He would. Funny how that works, isn't it?

Now, God has also been teaching me to not depend on the number in the bank account. That's subjective. It can change at any moment. According to the account I don't have enough money to last me this month. According to God I have MORE THAN ENOUGH. Some of you might be thinking "Oh Amie, that's a nice thought, but you might want a plan B incase God doesn't come through." You don't understand..... there is no plan B. God is plan A and there are no other plans. I have to trust Him, I have NO other options. And guess what? He's coming through for me, as He ALWAYS will because I TRUST HIM. Without faith, you cannot please God (Heb. 11:6). I have faith. I didn't have faith in God for my finances before, I had faith in myself and my bank account and my good job.

So the tutoring companies have told me I won't start tutoring until mid to end Oct. And like I said above, my bank accounts (where they are at right now) will not last until then..... so here's how God has provided so far and He's NOT DONE! The one tutoring company that is "temporary" called me and wants ME out of all the tutors (yay!), to accompany them to promote the company at a "tutor fair" next week a few days and I'll get paid to do it! That check will come JUST in time! I'll get money in other ways too..... the thing is, I'm NOT WORRIED! Worry is the opposite of faith. And remember FAITH pleases God!

It's really nice resting in God. There is a peace here that I'm not sure I can really explain, you kind of have to experience it yourself. I suppose it's a peace that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). No one can shake me out of this peace and this rest. Not my bank account, not friends, not family, not the devil. NO ONE can shake me. I stand on the solid ROCK of Jesus Christ. Man this is a great place to be.