God works in Mysterious Ways. This famous phrase is never found in the Bible. The closest we come is Romans 11:33: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"
This is day 10, and I had to choose which item to give praise about.
-There are some stories of 'mysterious people' coming in and out of our lives in the 'nick of time' to bless us and those around us, with some small talent that was so uniquely timed that it had to be of God. Were they angels? Just people sensitive to God's nudges? Have you ever looked back on your life and met someone like that? ….. we've seen it happen a few times. Someone just arrives from seemingly no-where, fills a specific need we had, encourages us, and then is gone, and we never see them again. (three specific stories come to mind, the heavy equipment operator, the jungle chef, and the old man…ask me later)
We definitely praise God for these mysterious miracles! But should it be our day #10 entry?
-What about the fact that our son is turning 14 on Sunday. Praise to God for him and his contribution to our family:
Son: "Dad, in the future I'm going to invent time travel."
Me: "No you won't.
Son: "Yes I will, and I'll prove it, when I invent time travel I'll come back to this very moment and prove you wrong."
*blink… blink.. wait
Me: "Well, I hate to break it to you son but you didn't invent time travel."
We definitely Praise God for Him.
-What about all the people who have been blessing us this year/month/day/hour? What about the generosity of spirit we've seen, the gifts given, the loving emails? Nah, we did that in day 3 (-;
-What about the power of God's Word to change lives? The people in PNG giving their hearts and lives over to Christ after getting the Word in their heart language the first time? We praise God for that too! We're reading the updates of our co-laborers in PNG and hearing awesome stories (which I'll be blogging)
There is really a whole lot to Praise God for. 10 days doesn't cover it. We give thanks to God every day, we lift His name up every day.
So what should we do for Day 10?
oh…. I dunno… maybe…
…… this just in. We're at 100% financial support!!! We're officially able to return to Papua New Guinea. (happened minutes ago).
That sounds like a pretty good one. With our deadline of May 1, this Friday, we're at our goal on Weds.
ASK ANY MISSIONARY, the money always comes in at the last minute. I don't know why God does it that way, but He does. And we KNOW He does and its a practice of faith to not get overly freaked out as the deadline draws nearer.
We told ourselves 'May 1 seems impossible, we have too much support to raise by then.'
but then we reminded ourselves 'God has always done it this way, He reminds us that He does it, we don't do it with our own power. HE does.'
and we calm down, we sit, we pray, we work, and we watch it happen.
And God has done it again. *enter your favorite triumphant music here*
I was so hoping we'd be able to state that as the 10th day of Praise, but I wasn't sure because, well, May 1 is still 2 days away (-; Maybe I should have hedged my bets and made it 12 days of Praise!!!
God is awesome, He is faithful, He sends us encouragement, He brings people together to glorify Him, He causes miracles, He changes lives, He repairs brokenness, and enables us to love the unlovable.
PRAISE Him!
(maybe I'll tell you some of those mysterious people stories in another day's blog).
P.S. though we are excited about the financial goal being met, it in no way trumps or devalues the priority of the other items we Praise God for! We don't want to give the impression that we're all about money. In fact, these 10 days have been about changing our recent focus from our financial needs and onto God and praising Him. (hmmn, interesting how that works out innit?)
However, God deserves praise for that which He has brought about, and this is definitely one of them. Now we can stop talking about money and get on about the business that money is going to support! Be watching this blog for future updates on the exciting things happening in this ministry in PNG!
