Living Courageously: You Can Face Anything, Just Do It Afraid (9 page)

I also heard of a woman who was driving down the road thinking about her daughter who had recently died when she heard her tire pop. She stopped and got out of the car to assess her situation and realized she was a long way from any help. As she looked up she saw a man in the distance coming toward her rolling a tire. He said, “I have been sent to help you.” He changed her tire and as he walked away he turned back and said, “Jenny is fine and you don’t need to worry about her anymore.” Jenny was her daughter who had died. Surely, the visitor who was sent to help her was an angel.

There are literally thousands upon thousands of reports such as these, and it is quite exciting and comforting to realize that we truly are not alone. God sends His angels to assist us in many ways that we probably don’t recognize.

Perhaps like me, you’re not sure that you have ever seen an angel, but we can and should have the faith to believe they are with us simply because God’s Word says that they are.

I have already established that we will all feel fear at various times in our lives, but we don’t have to let it stop us. We don’t have to obey it. Realizing that we are never alone, but that we in fact have divine help with us at all times, should embolden us to do whatever we need and want to do, even if we have to “do it afraid.”

The fear of lack, or the fear of not having what you need, is possibly one of the biggest fears that people deal with. We have an inherent need for preservation and spend much of our time in life taking care of ourselves and our loved ones. If we think we may not be taken care of, it is easy to let fear fill our thoughts, words, and emotions, but we don’t have to. As believers in Jesus Christ, we have the privilege of putting our faith in God to meet all of our needs. And when we do that, faith will conquer fear. God’s Word teaches us that when we seek the Lord, none of us shall lack any beneficial thing (see Psalm 34:10). There will be no want to those who truly revere and worship Him.

Have you faced times when you wondered if God would really come through and meet your needs? I have, and now that I am on the other side of those times I can assure you that God is faithful. It is always good to be on the other side of difficulty, but that doesn’t seem to help us much when we are going through that difficulty. At least not until we have gone through several things and have experienced God’s faithfulness. Then and only then can we develop a strong faith that will overcome the fear of lack in our lives.

We live life forward, but we understand it backward. I can look back now and see how most of the really hard things I went through in life have actually worked out for my good and helped to make me the person I am today. I thought at the time that they would kill me, like most of you do, but here I am still alive and doing well. My problems not only didn’t kill me, but they made me stronger!

We may not always get what we want, but God will always provide what we need. He does give us the desires of our heart if those desires are in accordance with His will for us. I sometimes find myself feeling afraid that I won’t get what I want, or that things won’t turn out the way I want them to, and then I remember that God’s ways are better than mine and I trust Him to do what is best for me.

As I sensed God calling me to teach His Word, I knew that I needed to have lots of time to study and prepare before I would be able to help many people. Preparation is very important, and
it is something that we must do if we expect to be any good at what we do. I was a young wife and mother of three children at the time and I worked a full-time job, so that left me with very little time to do anything. I cooked, cleaned, shopped, went to Girl Scout meetings, parent-teacher meetings, helped with homework, went to church, volunteered at church for various committees and events, and on and on the list goes.

Eventually I came to believe that God was leading me to quit my job so I could prepare for what I had come to believe would be a future in ministry. However, there was a problem: Our bills added up to more than Dave’s income, so if I quit my job, we wouldn’t have enough money to even pay the bills, let alone anything extra for all the unexpected things that come up in life. I was afraid to step out in faith and do what I believed I should do.

I wonder: How many of you are facing a situation like that in your life right now? Perhaps many of you; I hope my story will give you courage to “step out and find out” what the future holds.

I would like to say that I courageously took a step of faith without hesitation, but that was not the case. I waited and waited and finally took a part-time job; then I was fired from my part-time job. You must understand that I was a very hard worker and not the type of employee who got fired. You see, God was leading me to quit my job and totally trust Him, but I gave a sacrifice instead of obedience, which still equals disobedience. I did quit a 40-hour-a-week job, but still worked two and a half days a week so I could take care of myself and feel confident that we would have enough money. I said I was trusting in God, but I wasn’t “completely” trusting Him, and that was what He needed from me.

We were $40 a month short of having enough money to pay our bills and God was asking me to trust Him, but I had very
little experience in doing that, so the thought of it was extremely frightening to me. I realize now that had I not obeyed God then, I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing today. I had to trust God for $40 a month before I could trust him for the millions needed today to reach the world through television and other media outlets with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I wanted to do something great, but I was unwilling to do something small! People like that never succeed. It is only when we are faithful in little things that God can eventually make us rulers over much (see Matthew 25:21).

When I was fired from my part-time job, I realized that God meant business, and I didn’t look for another job. I started my journey of trusting God to meet all of our financial needs, and I knew that meant I would need miracles on a regular basis. God did amazing things for our family over a period of six years while I was teaching two small home Bible studies, and I continued studying every opportunity I got. The things God did would seem small to most people, and perhaps in their mind wouldn’t qualify for “miracle status,” but to us they were miracles. And as we saw the faithfulness of God, it helped us develop an intimate relationship with Him.

Let me quickly say that I am not suggesting that anyone quit working a job in order to prepare for the next thing you believe God wants you to do, unless you have a clear direction from God to do so. What I did was really radical, but I did see God’s provision—and we were never late paying a bill once. If God had not provided, then I would have quickly known it was my idea—not God’s—and I would have gotten a job very fast. We must always remember that what God orders, He pays for! God
was leading me and the evidence was seen in the fact that He provided what we needed.

The money we needed came in differently each time. Once it was a refund on taxes we weren’t expecting. Our monthly fee for utilities was lowered and that helped each month. We got things on sale that we were not expecting at the grocery store, and people would bless us with things that we needed. We were invited out to dinner, which saved on groceries, and quite often someone would just hand us a gift of money and say, “I felt that God put it on my heart to bless you with this.” Wow! I had never had anything like that happen to me in my life and it was very exciting. Once I needed new dishcloths and had written on my prayer list a request for a dozen of them. A few weeks went by, and then one day the doorbell rang. I opened the door, and a woman I hardly knew held out a stack of dishcloths and said, “I hope you don’t think I am crazy, but I felt strongly that God wanted me to gift you a dozen dishcloths.” Things like this had never happened before because I never needed it to, and when I did need it, God came through.

For six years I can say that we lived on monthly miracles. I remember going to garage sales with a few dollars and finding tennis shoes that were new for my children, or other items I needed. I could cook hamburger 100 different ways. New clothes for Dave or me were extremely rare, but somehow we always had what we needed. We didn’t have everything we wanted, but we did have what we needed. Through it all I learned not to worry so much and to trust more.

One day while studying, I was struck by the fact that when God was leading the Israelites toward the Promised Land, their clothes and shoes didn’t wear out. They didn’t get new ones, but God miraculously made the ones they had last 40 years. God has many ways of providing for us, and we should be excited about them all.

The reason I share my story with you is to encourage you as you stand in faith, believing God to meet your needs. Just as God provided for me and for my family, He will provide for you and for your family. The exact methods may be different, but His providing nature is the same—He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. All throughout Scripture God shows Himself to be a provider. Whether it is food, shelter, healing, hope, or salvation, He provides everything we need. So be encouraged today; keep your head up and your eyes looking forward. God’s provision is on the way.

Any farmer knows that he cannot reap where he has not sown, and the same principle is true for us. As we give, it is given unto us (see Luke 6:38), so Dave and I never failed to give our tithe and offerings to the work of God. Even when it was very difficult to do so, we did it and we saw the results. God has given us several promises regarding His care for us that we should take time to look at.

We should not give merely to get, but we cannot expect to reap where we have not sown. If you give generously to help others and do so with a good attitude, God will always be faithful to meet all of your needs.

God once sent a mighty prophet to a poor widow to have his needs met. It was a time of famine in the land, and when he arrived, she told him that she barely had enough for one last meal for her and her son and then they were going to die. I teasingly say that she was not only poor, but she was also depressed and focused on death. Couldn’t God have come up with someone better for the prophet? Before, God arranged for him to be fed by ravens bringing him food in the morning and evening. That sounds more exciting to me than a poor, depressed widow who was focused on dying. But God didn’t send Elijah to the widow for himself; he was sent there because the widow needed a miracle.

The first thing that Elijah told her to do was feed him, to which she responded that she could not due to her lack. The prophet persisted in his request, and I am sure that even though she complied, she was quite afraid. He had promised her that if she gave to him first, she would have plenty to eat for the remaining days of the famine. Elijah didn’t need the widow to give him something, but she needed to give! As soon as she did, the oil in the bottle and the meal in the barrel began to multiply and continued to do so. This entire story is found in 1 Kings 17, and it is definitely worth taking the time to read and study it.

If the idea of giving your money away is frightening, then start by doing it afraid and eventually you will be able to do it in faith. Say, “Lord I am afraid, but I am going to do this because You want me to, and I love You.” The thought of giving money away may even be foreign to some of you, and if it is, I ask that you study God’s Word on the subject. I believe you will see that it is a biblical principle that cannot be ignored.

You may feel that you cannot afford to give, but truthfully, you can’t afford not to. No farmer expects a harvest unless he plants seed. If we want a harvest of good things in our lives, then we also need to plant seed. If you don’t know the principles of giving, you may not even know where to give or what to give to. The Bible says to bring the tithe and offering into the storehouse that there might be meat in God’s house. We should give to churches and ministries that are meeting our needs and the needs of others. Give to the poor! Give to finance the preaching of the Gospel! Give to help people who have no one to help them. Form a habit of being a blessing everywhere you go!

God doesn’t need our money, so why does He ask us to give it? I believe giving releases something in us that is beautiful. God is a giver, and I think that when we give unselfishly, we are more like God than at any other time in our lives. Giving is one way to resist selfishness and greed. “It is more blessed (makes one happier and more to be envied) to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). When someone gives us a gift, we only get the gift, but when we give, we get the joy of giving. The tithe represents the first 10 percent of all of our increase. Why tithe? Because if we are willing to give the first portion right off the top in obedience to God, it shows we are putting Him first and trusting Him to take care of the rest. God can make 90 percent go farther than 100 percent would have, but you’ll never know if you don’t step out and find out.

To a child of God, His provision appears to be miraculous, but to those who don’t have their faith in God, it seems like mere coincidence. I want to live amazed at what God is doing all the time, so I choose to be like a little child in this matter and I hope you
will also. Perhaps if you begin to see what God is already doing for you, then it will be easier to trust that He will always meet your needs and that you don’t have to be afraid of lack. Someone told me yesterday that I was lucky that I had been able to overcome the abuse in my childhood. I don’t believe it was luck; I believe it was and is the goodness of God. The word “luck” suggests that a thing merely happened by chance and there was nothing divine involved, and I don’t believe that. Life would be quite dreary if all we had to look forward to was whatever luck we had or didn’t have.