Our basis of faith
I was asked recently what my basis of faith was for believing that God will provide for us during our journey. This is roughly what I said - I thought it was a pretty good summary, so I figured I’d put it on here!
Stephen Covey - Trust in Your Abilities
A friend of mine was sharing with me one of the principles in one of Stephen Covey’s books (the author who wrote “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”). This principle was directed at people who spend a lot of energy worrying about whether or not they will lose their jobs - and that was to say that their “job security” comes not through their actual job, but through their ability to do their job. And I said at the time, that is a good principle for people who can work, but I have been forced to a point where I can no longer rely on my abilities (due to CFS). In the past I could know that I could sit down and write some computer programming code - now I don’t know when I sit down whether or not I will be able to concentrate - sometimes I just have to go and lie down, and try again in a few hours, or the next day.
So, because I can no longer rely on my own ability, the only thing I have left is God. And I believe that God has engineered this situation to make it so that I have to rely on Him rather than on my own abilities.
I wrote up a statement to help focus my thoughts on this - something that I read pretty much every day:
I am totally dependent on God for all of my daily needs. My security is not in my money or my possessions or my abilities, it is in God alone. I renounce my old habit of being more dependent upon my strengths and resources than on God’s. I choose to humble myself and place all my confidence in God.
Can’t stay, re-evaluate what we can do
By about July 2007 we realised that we could not survive long term doing what we were doing, with me working what little hours that I could, and getting paid only for the hours that I worked. We were simply not generating enough money to continue living in our rented house. So we have to re-evaluate how we earned money. Preferably something that did not have a direct correlation between hours and dollars - ie. something where I work to set up something that sells while I either rest, or work on the next thing.
We were also open to the possibility that Carla could do something to earn money as well, or instead of me.
Always wanted to travel
While we were thinking laterally, we realised that what we really want to do is travel. It is one of those dreams that we had always shelved because it just wasn’t practical. We always had other responsibilities and ties that meant that although we could arrange a short break - maybe even a few months, we always had to come back.
But what we really want is to be able to travel with no set itinerary, and no set end date. Something where we are self-sufficient so that we don’t “run out of money”, but rather we can just continue as long as the whim takes us!
And now, we no longer have any ties. Both Carla and I are no longer in any leadership roles at the church, due to my health. The boys are being home educated, so there is no school to worry about (in fact, what a fantastic learning experience!).
Can’t afford to stay - must rely on God to survive - might as well do what we really desire.
So even though travelling brings with it its own whole set of unknowns, and maybe we just can’t afford to do it anyway, but we had already figured out that we couldn’t afford to stay either, so we figured that we might as well try and probably fail at something that we would love to do, rather than try and probably fail at something we really don’t want to do! And who knows, maybe we won’t fail?
Suburban life is draining our spirits
We really don’t enjoy living in the suburbs. For the first 10 years of our married life we lived in a cottage in the middle of a 100 acre paddock, in the middle of a 1700 acre farm! And we loved the space! We feel that the suburban life is slowly sapping our spirits dry.
Possibly also contributing to our health situation
It is also possible that the suburban life is also contributing to our health situations. Not only me with CFS, but also Carla’s headaches & migraines, the boys’ coughs, wheezes & sneezes, and eczma, amongst a myriad of other minor ailments.
Some of these may be caused by pollutants, some of these may be caused by the stress of living in a place we do not want to be in (ie. Proverbs: Hope deferred makes the heart sick).
Learning to not rely on my own abilities, but rather to trust God - emails, sermons, scriptures
As I said before, I can see that God has been teaching me to rely on Him rather than on my own abilities. We have had numerous confirmations of this, in emails, sermons, books we have read, and just insights we get from everyday occurances. Over and over again, it is like God is saying to us “Just rely on Me. Won’t worry about how you are going to do it. Just rely on Me.”
“Just Prepare”
When asking God “What should I do, especially as we don’t have any money to actually do anything with?” I get a strong sense to “just prepare”. This is in the sense of Nehemiah in the bible, who was a slave to a foreign king, but who really wanted to be back in his home country fixing up the ruined city walls. Humanly, this was an impossibility, but when the king asked him what he wanted to do and what did he need to have so that he could do it, Nehemiah could say, in detail, everything that he needed. In other words, he had prepared as much as he could, so that he was ready to jump if the opportunity ever arose.
I have got the sense from God, when I have asked Him what about this, or what about that, of “Don’t worry, it is all being taken care of. Just be prepared.” A real calming, a sense of peace.
So that is it. Obviously there is much more detail than I have written here, but those are our reasons in a nutshell for being able to trust God that we can travel.
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