Our three weeks of Cross Training ended yesterday with a meaningful commissioning service at headquarters.\u00a0 We were blessed to have several friends and my mom there to join in the celebration.\u00a0 Afterwards we\u00a0cleaned out our living quarters, packed the van and drove back to Columbus to join our friends Kate and Storly to celebrate Kate’s 40th birthday and to catch up – their family spent the last two months in Haiti, working with the radio station and hosting numerous short term teams from the U.S. and the U.K.We didn’t get home until after 10:00 PM. and we begged the kids to SLEEP IN come morning.\u00a0 So good to be back in familiar beds.\u00a0 Now it is morning and the weather is perfect: dark and rainy.\u00a0 But MY body decides to get me up at 5:30!\u00a0 The funny thing is that I didn’t wake up all stressed out over our extensive To Do List (17 days until our flight to Cap Haitien!).\u00a0 No, my first thoughts were over my major ‘take away’ from Cross Training.\u00a0 It’s another one of those basic Christian beliefs that is belatedly making it’s way from my head to my heart, so I am almost embarrassed to write about this.Plus, I am\u00a0 still processing this – and I haven’t had enough sleep – and it’s 8:15 and kids are starting to trickle out of bed – so I will keep this brief.\u00a0 For three weeks now I have been chewing on a basic question: Do I really TRUST God?\u00a0 Do I trust in His goodness?\u00a0 Do I trust in His love?\u00a0 Do I trust in His righteousness to cover me? Do I trust that He can bring good out of even the worst circumstances?\u00a0 Do I trust Him with the safety of my family?\u00a0 Do I really trust?Or do I hedge my bets?\u00a0 Do I create contingency plans in case God lets me down?\u00a0 Do I question my standing before God?\u00a0 Do I wonder how – or if – He can love ME?\u00a0 Do I fear that God won’t come through in my time of need?There’s a\u00a0chasm between saying I trust in God (while actually harboring fears and doubts)\u00a0and truly having a heart at peace and at rest in the Lord’s love and provision.\u00a0 The latter is akin to Adam and Eve walking in the garden with God and is the very relationship we were created to enjoy.\u00a0 The former is akin to Adam’s response to God after the Fall: “I heard you coming so I hid.”\u00a0 We acknowledge God’s existence but we just know He’s got it in for us!Early in our Cross Training experience, one of our speakers pointed out that the Genesis account of the Fall makes clear that Adam and Eve’s distrust of God is the original sin.\u00a0 God said, “All this paradise is yours, just don’t eat the fruit from this one tree.” And the serpent said to Eve, “Did God really say…?” And then he went on to contradict God: “You shall not surely die.” And Eve gave in to this questioning of God’s goodness and God’s motives.So it boils down to this: when\u00a0we harbor doubts of God’s love, intentions, and provision, is that closer to the mind of Christ or to the mind of Satan?\u00a0 And what are we going to do about it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our three weeks of Cross Training ended yesterday with a meaningful commissioning service at headquarters.\u00a0 We were blessed to have several friends and my mom there to join in the celebration.\u00a0 Afterwards we\u00a0cleaned out our living quarters, packed the van and drove back to Columbus to join our friends Kate and Storly to celebrate Kate’s […]<\/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-3572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572","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=3572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3573,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572\/revisions\/3573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}