Moving at the pace of the Lord

One of the songs we sing at Praise & Worship is called "Wait on the Lord" .  It's one of our very traditional songs we've been singing for years at church and a favorite of mine.  But singing to me is a great part of the life God gave me, so I almost physically wouldn't be able sing a song that's off-the-shelf, pop into Praise & Worship every now and again to fill 5min...for me I have to live and breathe it, believe in it.  We pray over the songs we use.  That's what singing is to me putting the life, energy and breath God gave you into making the music live.  So I have to live life moving at the pace of the Lord.  My wife and I wanted to get out of our apartment, but we knew we didn't feel the Lord's timing and there were many other considerations trying to get IZRI off the ground, working our jobs and doing our several ministries at church.  The conditions of the apartment were getting worse and then I lost my Dad to cancer and we had to make arrangements, travel, and prepare for his homegoing.  In no more than about a month after that, a mass layoff at work and I'm suddenly jobless.  "Did we miss God's timing?!", I was asking myself.  "What's to become of us?!" , "Why now?!"  These thoughts were constantly trying to drown my faith, destroy any sense of joy and overtake my mind.  

So what does it feel like to really, really, when-you-want-to-do-it-now, really, don't-think-you-can-stand-it-another-second, REALLY!... wait on God?  It is painful to the flesh-man.

You see we learn in scripture we have a spirit-man and a flesh-man inside us. Our flesh lives by its worldly knowledge and senses, and our spirit seeks out it's true Creator, God.  A Christian knows this and we are to "die" (set permanently aside, throw away, abandon, cease from living) to operating by just our senses, but out in front there is now to be the spiritual activities of prayer, faith, and love. That kind of "dying to self" is not a painless experience.

              Gal 5:24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

 In order for faith to exist there must be a reduction and elimination of fear. You can't be so worrisome of the future that faithful steps toward it never follow.  Paraphrasing what was explained in the Christian movie "Facing the Giants", in a drought situation, the farmer who plows the land and plants the seed in hope without a cloud in the sky, is the one who truly has faith that God will provide the rain to make it grow.

So. with me laid off unexpectedly after 13 years of professional work, and with family and church obligations abounding, my wife and I decided to trust what the Lord God was saying spiritually and continue to look with bank and broker to buy a house in a down-turned economy. The fleshly five human senses and the inner intellectual man asked "Are you crazy?", but the faithful, spiritual, Christ imitator man asked "What do I pack first, Lord?"  Paperwork, credit checks, job status checks, more paperwork, faxes, emails, inspections, ministry obligations, phone calls and bills, bills, bills. Those mountains were not removed, but GOD saw us through them in sometimes miraculous ways. 

God made what man called impossible and impractical, seem completely logical to me and in less than a year we are blessed to now live in a beautiful new home, a new life and a new testimony that says, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." (Philippians 4:1)