Quiet on this end

Well, not really, we are not any quieter than normal, just not blogging about our every day adventures.

Life is good here in our Cole home.  Things are changing here in our world.  Funny how that happens.

It seems that maybe we did not do things quite the way God hoped we would back 8 months ago.  I am not saying that this was a big mistake, it was not.  Again proof that God can take our mistakes (so to speak) and do great things with them.  You see it all goes back to Joshua. 

In Joshua 9 lots of interesting things happen.  First, God has told Joshua not to be friends with any of the locals.  He warns that if they befriend them, they will start to marry, and those locals are all heathens.  So Joshua obeys, he knows the benefits of obeying God.

However, some kings get together (local kings) and they send some men to Joshua to get a treaty with him.  They dress them up in old clothes, old shoes, old wine skins.  They lead Joshua to believe (and his advisors too) that they are really from far away. So a treaty is signed.  Know what Joshua did wrong?

I did not, neither did Robert when I told him this story.

Joshua did not ask God for his advice.  He never sought his counsel – and this is Joshua a man that god spoke to and advised.

So how does this apply to us?  Well, we were on the job hunt, we were offered a job.  One that looked good from many appearances (not all but we seemed to dismiss those) and we took it.  It was the first job offer.  We were out of money and we were anxious to work again.  So we took it.

What did we do wrong?  Well in the world’s eyes nothing really.  But we were trusting God through that whole process, through the finding houses to stay in, putting food on the table and opening job doors for us.  But you know what?  Sometimes Satan can open a door too.  I am not saying that the Dr P job is from satan.  It is not that he has this tremendous power in the lives of believers, but he likes to stir things up, get our focus off what we should be doing and living and get it on other things : stress, worry, fear, etc.  And I think that if we had prayed fervently, taken some time to look at all the aspects of this job and trusted ourselves and God a bit more we would not have travelled down this path.

That all being said, God has blessed us tremendously despite our knee-jerk reaction.  We LOVE our church, we love our new friends.  We have made some real relationships here that I hope will last no matter how long we are here.  We were able to get back into life as we knew it quickly.  So many benefits!!  But I still think that maybe Irving was not God best for us.

I believe this because we know what Robert wants to do, we know the kind of field and the kind of people he wants to work with.  Now we need to trust that God will open the right door and if we trust him, and talk to him he will make it clear to us.

I can see that now as doors are starting to open in some crazy ways.  How I can go from one day worried about anything to the next seeing his hand upon us, this situation and our lives in general. 

So I am excited, we are on the move.  Maybe within the DFW metroplex, maybe not.  Either way I feel like God is asking for it all this time.  All our trust, all our faith.  Last time we had a few cushions in place.  Not this time.  And that scares me – but Sunday he told me (through our pastor) that he wants it ALL.   He wants me to trust him in all of it, and with all of it.  So I do.  I am ready to go where he leads and to see what he does.  I trust him with our dinner table, with our home, with my kids, with it all.  And finally the stress diminishes and fear is replaces with FAITH.

I am excited to see him grow my mustard seed faith, and I am excited to see the work he will do in Robert too, and I am excited to see where he takes us!!

 

PS – Jim is out!! WooHoo! Thank you to all of you who have prayed for him.  I hope to  post pics tomorrow when he comes to meet my kids and visit with us!! Cannot wait!!