As I was reading in Colossians today, it occurred to me that Julie and I would appreciate it if you prayed for us the way Paul prayed for the Colossians:
For this reason we have not stopped praying for you since the day we heard about you. We ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through every kind of spiritual wisdom and insight. We ask this so that you will live the kind of lives that prove you belong to the Lord. Then you will want to please him in every way as you grow in producing every kind of good work by this knowledge about God. We ask him to strengthen you by his glorious might with all the power you need to patiently endure everything with joy. You will also thank the Father, who has made you able to share the light, which is what God’s people inherit. (Colossians 1:9-12, God’s Word translation)
Julie and I are enduring some difficulties, and are asking God to:
- Teach us what He desires to teach us in this time.
- Tell us what He wants us to do.
He is doing that – praise God!
Would you please do one of two things right now? You can do both, but please do at least one:
Contact us and let us know you are praying.
Find out more about what we are enduring.
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Julie and I feel we are in a humanly impossible situation. While that’s not a comfortable place, it’s a good place, because it leaves us reliant on God alone.
We have persevered for 15 years with low support – on average, funding for our personal expenses has been equivalent to an annual salary of $24,000 – and we now face rising costs and falling income. Today we receive the equivalent of an annual salary of $20,000. We cannot cover our costs on that income, so it looks as if we’re going to exhaust our savings by the end of summer.
To give a bigger picture, we are $4,000 a month short of the funds the New Tribes Mission says we need to minister effectively. This is not the equivalent of a salary; much of that is for ministry expenses, which we currently can fund only minimally.
We see three choices:
- Walk away from the ministry God has called us to. Besides the shortage of funding, we see no indications that God has changed His direction for our lives. In fact, we have seen affirmations from God that this is where He wants us.
- Serve God and go into debt by $500 to $1,500 a month.
- Increase my working hours from 60 a week to 80 in order to meet with people about giving to our ministry. Based on past experience, doing this continuously may cover our shortfall.
I am certain you understand that none of those seems like something God desires for us to do.
So we’re asking God to do three things:
- Teach us the lessons He has for us in these difficult times.
- Tell us what He wants us to do.
- Provide abundantly.
He’s been teaching us about contentment. Daily, and often more than once a day, we are reminding ourselves, “We have the money to pay our bills today.”
To this point, He’s told us to pray and trust Him. This is why I have not written to you about this before now. I now feel the liberty to share our situation with you. He’s told us one other thing as well, which I’ll tell you about in a moment.
We haven’t heard anything about abundance yet. We may never, but we figured it can’t hurt to ask.
But wait. It gets better.
New Tribes Mission will soon begin moving into a new office building – one that is just offices and no apartments. We live in a low-rent NTM apartment. We’ve been assured we have a year or so to find somewhere else to live, but we will need somewhere else to live, which will further increase our expenses.
And now for the other thing has told us to do.
We had been giving $350 a month to church and other ministries. He prompted us to increase that to $650 of the $1,700 we have available for personal expenses each month.
I think you’ll understand when I tell you I hesitated to obey.
Then I received a letter from a young woman from our church who was raising money to go on a mission trip. I looked at the letter and said out loud, “I’d love to help, but I can’t afford it.” Hearing myself say that stopped me in my tracks.
How on earth could I have such a lack of faith? If God was prompting me to give – and let’s be honest here, who else prompts us to give? – how could I not trust Him to take care of me if I obey?
When I told Julie, she told me she had just been waiting for me to realize I was making excuses. We made a gift to the young lady in an amount we felt would be a significant help, and we increased our giving to $650 a month.
I tell you that because I want to be clear that I am not some super-saint who is absolutely and instantly obedient. I also want you to know that giving this much makes no sense to me either. It’s not my job to make sense of what God tells me to do; it’s my job to do it. Is this contrary to the way God works, or to His Word? No. He can ask for everything, even my life.
That’s a rather scary spin on the old saying, “I belong to God,” isn’t it? But it’s true.
Do you belong to God too? What would He have you do?
Does He want you to commit to pray daily that we will learn from God, and hear His voice and obey? If so, please let us know.
Does He want you to give? Will you give that?
Here’s a way to give to our ministry.
Bear in mind, it’s not really about you giving to us. We’re asking you to obey God and worship Him by giving, wherever and in whatever amount He leads. If He’s telling you to give, you ought to do it, because it’s an important part of your spiritual journey.
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