God has provided! My support is at this present momont 100% complete! It is quite a surreal moment to be here right now. Jamie and I found out earlier this evening. God has put incredible people in our lives and only by Him have we been able to be in this place. We consider this moment a marker in our lives because of the great apparent and physical state of ease in seeing His provision. There have been many hills and valleys this summer. God has brought both of us out of dark times and times of doubting our role in this ministry and in our calling. It is moments like these that God uses to bring us farther. These moments where in our future, during times of struggle and loneliness and lack of trust, we can go back and see where God has been. Right by us all along. God has taught me some things recently and I would like to use this as a form more so to show what God is doing in my life. I"m gonna quote a bit out of the bible and also out of the book "A Hunger for God" by John Piper. In Piper's book he is talking about the part in Chapter 2 of the book of Luke when Mary and Joseph bring Jesus to the temple to be presented. In verse 25 it says: "Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been rvealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death beofre he had seen the Lord's Christ."....Mary and Joseph show him Jesus...verse 29 "Lord, now you are letteing your servant depart in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel." This passage struck me...I have just experienced the climax of this man's life! What a beautiful picture. What a longing that this man had to see the Christ. "you are letting your servant depart in peace". How amazing this man must have felt. Did he sleep that night? How do you thank the Lord for something like that? It then goes onto Anna....verse 36 "She was advance in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, tand then as a widow until was eightyfour. She did not depart from hte temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem." To finish I will quote a bit out of "A Hunger for God" "I think Luke tells us about Simeon and Anna to illustrate the way holy and devout people feel about the promise of Christ's coming, and how God responds to their longings. They see more than others see. they may not understand fully all the details about how the Messiah is coming--Simeon and Anna surely didn't--but God mercifully gives them, before they die, a glimpse of what they so passionately wanted to see." "Now here we are on the other side of the King's coming. He has come and gone away again. He has revealed his glory. He has shed his blood for our sings. he has risen from the dead. he has ascedned into heaven to sit at the Father's right hand until he puts all his enemies under his feet. He has sent his Holy Spirit to regenerate us and sanctify us and indwell us. He has commissioned his church to disciple the nations. And he has promised in John 14:3, "I will come again." Speaking about Anna...."She never heard the merciful words, "Today you will be with me in Paradise," or the triumphant words, "It is finished." She never saw him risen from the dead triumphant over sin and death and hell. And yet from what she knew fo him in the Old Testement, she yearned for him and fasted with prayers night and day awaiting "the redemption of Israel. But we have seen all thsese things. We know the Savior a hundred times better than Anna did. And now this one, whom we know so well, is gone........Shall we long for him less than Anna longed for him? Does the fact that we have watched him live and love for three years and even now have his Spirit--does this make us feel Anna's longing less or more? Oh, what an indictment of our blindness or our dullness if the answer is: less." These people longed for Christ by the use of the OT and the OT alone! Think of the lack of longing that we have for Christ to return by us, who know the whole story! Not until we truely long for Christ to return will we fully understand and long for evangelism. Our longing for Christ to return and our longin for others to know Christ is connected. Oh how I worry about work or play or relationships or money...(not that God doesn't have a role in any of those areas of a life) to the point of sin but how has this life become so "nice". I think to myself..."I kind of like it here actually. I don't want to go anywhere. I hope that Christ waits. Him coming back would ruin all of my plans." How have we (myself) become some blinded.......I don't know. I long to know the Lord more. I long for more time with Him. Step by step. | 
