Waiting, patience, and trusting.

Waiting......ever been there? Probably a stupid question. We have all been there. Seems to be the place I find myself right now; waiting on a lot of things. This can be a place where our faith is tested. God seems to make people wait in the Bible to trust in him. Countless times in Psalms is says "Wait on the Lord." In Exodus God used waiting on Him as a test for the Israelites. They didn't do so well. It seems to be so much against our human nature to trust and wait on God; to have full reliance on him. If you are like me you like to take things into your own hands when things don't seem to be going the way you had planned. This is the case with Saul in Samuel chapter 13. You should go read it but for right now I will paraphrase the story. Chapter 13 takes place after Saul has been appointed king over Israel (the people) because they so badly wanted a king over them rather than letting God be their king. God gives them what they want and Saul is appointed king. Well in chapter 13 the Philistines are getting ready to fight with Israel. The Israelites are intimidated by the size and power of the Philistine army so they begin to flee and hide any place they can. Saul being their leader sees what is going on and knows that Samuel will be there soon to give a sacrifice to God and ask Him for deliverance and victory over the Philistines. When Samuel doesn't show up when he said he would (or when Saul thought he should) Saul takes things into his own hands and decides to make the sacrifice to God himself. BIG MISTAKE!! God had made it clear in the law (Exodus, Deut. and Lev.), that only the priests were suppose to do such a thing. Ironically, Samuel comes right after Saul completes the burnt offering. Samuel of course is very upset and explains to him that his kingdom will not continue because he disobeyed God.
I have to say that I can really identify with Saul. There have been so many times in my life when I was waiting as Saul was and I would start to get fearful about what would happen right now. Rather than waiting on God for his appointed time I felt I needed to take things into my own hands. I have realized that when I don't wait on God then I don't get to experience His power, and provision. I can miss out on seeing God work in wonderful ways.
Why is it so hard to trust in God? Why can't I just rest in His timing and purpose? Guess I am a fearful control freak. The great thing about this all is that God in his grace lets me live to see the next chapter in my life where my faith grows and I can see that I need to trust rather than fear. Where I need to rest in his timing and not what I think should be happening on my time table. Right now I have a peace about the waiting. I am trying to rest in God and not in myself, my emotions, or my circumstances. In God's infinite grace I am realizing that waiting is not such a bad place to be. I really used to always say I hated waiting but this time I am learning that it is a great place to be. Relying on God for everything and trusting in the unseen.
It sure is hard to learn from our mistakes but it can be such a sweet thing how God continues to give us grace as we grow and continue to trust Him in the waiting and walking by faith.

Update

I know I haven't really been updating how things are going. I don't really have much to say and not a lot of new news to share. We are still working on leaving by the middle of June and I know I have a lot to get done before then. We have sent out our letters and prayer cards so that was a big mile stone! Hooray! We have gotten all of our medical stuff done with the kids....so again hooray!! Immunizations next....
We did have a meeting with all the people going and that was super exciting so be together as a team and talk about our move there.

I also would like to share with you that God has been doing some amazing things in my life and in our family's life. We feel He is preparing us for this move and to minister to these people, and it has been very comforting and reassuring. It has also come with fiery darts, but this has made us grow stronger and for that we are grateful. Our faith continues to grow in His grace and we are overjoyed.


On a side note: In effort to get in a routine I am going to try to blog on Wednesdays.
Thanks for all of your prayers!!

Michaela

Where I am at

After 3 different non related people suggested a sermon series to me I decided I should stop using the excuse I was too busy and listen to them. I must say that God used these sermons and these particular scriptures to confirm a lot for me and to challenge me with not only my life, but with how we will be making decisions for Karamoja. I encourage you to listen to them and meditate on how you can respond to these radical statements Jesus calls us to.


Hope you are all doing well, and I will be getting the long anticipated letters out soon!
We do have a website in the making if anyone would like to check it out. It is still in construction, but I am excited that people will be able to get all information in one place!

Our new pictures

We had pictures taken by our friend for our prayer cards here are some of the fun ones:

Noisy Gong, Clanging Cymbal

Have you ever been seeking God through His word and prayer and have Him continually bring up something over and over again? It seems lately God has been bringing up the topic of love over and over again for me. It started when Cody told me he felt called to the people of Karamoja. Then again while reading Amy Carmichael's biography. While reading it some things about love really stuck out to me. Amy loved the people she worked with and she did not want them to parish without knowing the gift of salvation. She was very troubled if they didn't know. I started praying that God would give me a deep love for the Karamojong people. A Christ like love. Deeper than I have. That love for them would be the driving force for so much of what we were going to do. For the sacrifices we are going to be making.

This last week God has brought the idea of love up to me again. I decided to go to the well known love verse in Corinthians 13. I can not tell you how many times I have read this verse since becoming a Christian or how many times I have heard it preached on or read either in church or weddings, or Bible studies. Yes it has always challenged me. But for some reason this time some things really clicked with me, and I felt a conviction like I have never felt before. And not just conviction about going to serve the people of Karamoja in love but the love with which I serve my family.

Starting at Verse 4: my responses are in parenthesis. Love is patient and kind (wow, love how Paul starts with that one, because so much will follow with patience and kindness). Does not envy or boast (please God clean my heart on this one); it is not arrogant or rude (I am feeling real small about how rude I can be to my children or husband sometimes). It does no insist on its own way (how many times have I wanted my own way.....uhhhh...majority of the time); it is not irritable or resentful (ouch....God help me when I am irritable....as I can get there real quick when I hear, "Mom, Mom, Mommy, Mom, Mom, Honey, Mom, Honey, Mommie....'WHHAAATTT?' followed by extreme irritability.); it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with truth (no comment....:). Love bears all things (WOW), believes all things (super WOW), hopes all things (Speechless), endures all things (AMAZING).
What is so cool about our God is that Jesus showed all of this. He was God in the flesh living this out for you and me to follow. AMAZING.

I can then look at my life and see if I am following the greatest commandment. Matthew 22:37-40, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." I have to ask myself and ask God to search my heart to see if I really love him and if I really love my neighbors and the least of these. I start to ask myself the basics, "well what is love." I will admit the first thing that came to my shallow mind was a warm fuzzy feeling. Then my brain turned on and realized that it is action. A great scripture to display this is 1 John 3:16-18, "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the worlds' goods and sees his brother in need yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth." Love the last part, "Let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth." I can say all I want about loving God, and loving my family, and loving the Karamojong people but until I put my actions into place it means nothing. Yes action might be a byproduct of emotion but I pray that it could be much deeper. I have been asking God to instill in me a deeper obedience in all areas including love and I pray that the Holy Spirit will continue to do his work in creating fruit in my life for I know that I can not do it on my own.

Contact List

Hello to everyone. I wanted to start working on getting a contact list together to send out letters to people that would be interested in hearing more about our mission and what work God has called us to in Karamoja Uganda. If you are interested could you do me a favor and send me an email with your email address and your mailing address. That would be great. Will save me a lot of time. Thanks! My email is michaela.fulk@gmail.com.