During our 2 1/2 years of waiting for Emalee's arrival the Lord was teaching us to trust Him. He's still teaching me lessons on what we went through to get Emalee here.
I've been reading Voices Of The Faithful...Inspiring Stories of Christians Serving Around the World. It's a compilation of stories that missionaries have written. There's one story/devotion per day of the year. One story jumped out at me this week. Actually, it was the prayer at the end of the story. The prayer simply stated that the Lord is worthy of our trust. I thought I'd post the entire story for you to enjoy today and pray that it encourages you as it has me.
Immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him, and said to him, "You of little faith, why did you doubt?" Matt. 14:31 (NASB)
Peter took the step of faith. He leaped out of the boat when Jesus called. His feet skimmed across the water. Nevertheless, his strong start fizzled out. He was sinking and afraid for his life. Then Jesus reached out, lifted him up and put him safely in the boat with the loving rebuke, "Why did you doubt?"
So many times, we're tested like this. My supervisor suggested that our team and about 25 other friends should travel to a remote town in western China for Christmas. We planned to share the good news of Christ's birth with our ethnic-minority target group by helping organize a program at the local high school. I was ready to go.
Then the doubts came. I agonized about various scenarios. The trip would require four days there and four days back on hard roads. We would be crossing 12,000-foot passes in December with children and infants. Was this wise? Could the vehicles handle the terrible road conditions, with or without snow? I was taking my focus off Jesus and shifting it to the worst-case possibilities.
The trip finally came and went. We made it safely there and back with no snow. More importantly we got to share God's story through drama and song with 500 lost people in the school. We even performed "Shout to the Lord" on Christmas night at the town square in front of 2,000 people.
I realized that there's no reason to doubt when we're following the voice of the One named Faithful and True (Rev. 19:11, NIV).
--A worker in China
Heavenly Father, when your direction is obvious, help me not to doubt. You are worthy of my trust. I pray that Christian workers will trust you also in seemingly large and impossible projects. Amen.
