That’s what I told Melissa a couple of months ago in response to our mutual concern that we wouldn’t be able to raise the support necessary to get our family to Haiti in January.\u00a0 It was my (half-hearted) attempt to express faith that the Lord could still work a miracle and put us on the mission field after Christmas.Now it’s October 31st.\u00a0 I was in Walmart last night and the workers were already shoving aside the\u00a0candy\u00a0CORN\u00a0to make room for the candy CANES.\u00a0 This time of year always goes by so fast (at least for all of us non-children!) and January is right around the corner.And our support progress?\u00a0 We are hovering at 31% of what we need to move to the mission field.Am I confident that Melissa and I, in the next two months, can raise twice what was raised in the previous ten months?\u00a0 NOPE.Am I confident that “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”?\u00a0 YES.I do not type that word “yes” lightly or without fear.\u00a0 And I do not use Matthew 19:26 as a Scriptural feel-good cliche.\u00a0 God has been doing deep-down work on me over the past year or two – and especially over the past two months or so.\u00a0 The fact of the matter is that\u00a0even though in August I dropped my teaching job in order to devote full time to raising the necessary funds to put us on the mission field, precious little progress has been made on that front.\u00a0 I could offer as excuses three big things that consumed a lot of our time:\u00a0 my September trip to Haiti, Melissa’s knee surgery and the preparation of our house for rental.\u00a0 BUT, those issues aside (and they were all ultimately very good and necessary things), the\u00a0true reason I didn’t make any significant progress on funding during that time is that I was wrestling with God.Not long ago I posted about how we as Americans are adept at avoiding suffering.\u00a0 We are pretty successful at dodging any suffering that doesn’t broadside us out of the blue – like natural disasters, illness or the loss of\u00a0a job.\u00a0 Any “suffering” that is merely uncomfortable or unpleasant has no place in our daily lives – there shouldn’t be any film left by the dishwasher on our glasses, we should be able to lose weight without hunger or exercise and we shouldn’t have to wait in line at a grocery store for more than two minutes.\u00a0 It’s easy enough for me to point the finger at other Americans, but in these last few weeks, God has put his finger on one important area where I have been stubbornly unwilling to “suffer”: an overconcern with what other people think of me.\u00a0 (Also known as “fear of others”.)It may not be immediately obvious to you what sort of havoc this mindset has played on our fundraising efforts, so I’ll spell it out: fear of the phone, fear of making someone else uncomfortable by asking for financial support, and the pride of self-sufficiency all tend to stand firmly in the way of effectively raising up a team of people willing to dedicate their prayers and\u00a0money\u00a0to a Christ-glorifying ministry in Haiti.I have struggled with this fear of what others think of me since childhood, and I’m sure God would have gladly given up and left it alone now that I am in my mid-40’s\u00a0IF ONLY\u00a0it weren’t so darned sinful!\u00a0 Proverbs 29:25 – “The fear of man brings a snare, But he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted.”Jesus himself says, “I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do.\u00a0 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear\u00a0the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell.” (Luke 12:4 and 5)Halloween day seems a fitting time to reflect a bit on fear.\u00a0 And the one over-arching conclusion I have reached at the age of 44 is that the Bible speaks of ONLY ONE type of fear in a positive sense, and that is the “fear of God”.\u00a0 In the face of ALL other fears,\u00a0God’s people\u00a0are told again and again, “Fear not!”\u00a0 Much of what God has done in me these past two years has been to take Scripture that has been in my head and drive it into my heart – where it needs to take root and become reality in my life.\u00a0 I pray that it is so for Luke 12:4-5.\u00a0 I’ve dug my hole deeper than it needed to be, and now I’m repenting, asking for forgiveness and humbly looking to my Rescuer.\u00a0 I have a new resolve that when the rope is thrown my way, I am going to make the effort to grab hold – even if it makes me uncomfortable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
That’s what I told Melissa a couple of months ago in response to our mutual concern that we wouldn’t be able to raise the support necessary to get our family to Haiti in January.\u00a0 It was my (half-hearted) attempt to express faith that the Lord could still work a miracle and put us on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2795"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2796,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2795\/revisions\/2796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}