1 Peter 5:7 “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”
Do you ever feel overwhelmed with events and you just don’t know what to do?
We care for a few orphans in Sierra Leone. We learned about this home during the Ebola outbreak. They reached out to us in desperation and we helped a little bit with a one-time donation. The disease outbreak eased, however, the orphan population continued to grow. The caretaker of this orphanage contacted us again a while later. He sent me a photo of two young children sleeping on the floor of a local bar because they had no place to go. They looked to be about four or five years old. The caretaker asked us to help him to bring these little ones into the home. Nothing breaks my heart more than seeing young children suffering. Our budget did not allow us to take on more work and I told him “No”. How could I fix this problem?
The next day, I heard from our orphanage in Myanmar. The new school session started in the near future and they were out of school supplies. All 16 children needed new uniforms, book bags, pens, pencils and paper. He estimated that cost at $480. Regular donations covered our monthly expenses but left us with not much extra. How would the children go to school without these items? How could I fix this problem?
Recently, I participated in an on-line Bible study of the book “Walk in Faith” by Lysa TerKeurst. One particular quote from her book really stuck with me during the study. It said, “Trust God with the Journey as you take each step. You take care of the possible and let Him take care of the impossible.” God spoke to me through this quote. In the past, when I experienced problems in our ministry, I racked my brain to come up with ways to fix the issues myself. This approached caused me many frustrations. I prayed about the problems all the while but I continued to try to fix it on my own. I immediately knew what God was showing me. I needed to do the possible and let God handle the impossible. Wow, this revelation really blew me away. The stress of above events just lifted from my shoulders because I knew God was much better qualified to handle them. He did not need my help.
Luke 1:37 “For nothing is impossible with God.”
So now what? I intend to lift each of my problems to the Lord daily in prayer. I will wait for the Lord to show me my part in His work and then do my piece. God may not want my help to solve it right now. Maybe the Lord is not calling me to help solve the problems at all. God might have another purpose for these issues to happen and I must learn to wait on Him. What a gift to receive this message. God is able and I just need to trust Him.
I know this will take lots of practice on my part because my personality is such that I want to fix the problem. That personality trait is what originally leads me into this ministry because I felt called to help orphans (and solve all their problems). Thank goodness for the grace God offers me. He gently shows all of us the error of our ways and allows us to correct our course. This is something that I will try to fix with God’s help of course.
May the Lord Bless you and keep you.
Yvonne
Matthew 28:19 “Therefore, GO and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
