This season of fundraising has been an exceptionally challenging one. My funding for my trip has been slow moving and rather sloth-like. It took me three months to reach even 50% of my funding. I have been stressed, stretched, challenged, and overwhelmed all in the last few months, but God has done some great things.
Last week, I was utterly distraught. I needed $4500 in my funding account in order to go on my trip. I only had about $2000 in my account at the time. That was over $2000 that I needed God to provide for me in just about one week, if I was going to be fully funding. I started grappling with doubt and struggling with if this trip to Norway was really what God wanted for me in my life right now. I was doubting and not giving God a chance to reassure me. I was in the middle of a spiritual dry-spell, without getting time in the Word, or even consistently praying. All I saw was dollar signs and my deficiency.
Then last, Tuesday (I believe), I had a minor break-down. I was crushed by the overwhelming amount that I still needed. It was still about $2000, nothing much had changed. I was having an evening of desperation (and a few tears). Then, I decided that I needed to get some time in the Word. The Lord had been placing Matthew 7 on my heart for the last few weeks, I had just been ignoring the nudging of the Spirit. I opened my bible to Matthew 7, the passage on God being the Father who gives good gifts. I googled the passage, to see if there were any good cross references and I happened across a paper someone wrote on Matthew 7 and Luke 11 (the corresponding passage). Both spoke of God as a father who gives good gifts, but it went further than that. The metaphor used the images of a child asking for food and things that would sustain him and the father giving him these things. I was reminded of Psalm 84 and how God will withhold no good thing.
The paper I had found caused me to beg the question: What are good things and good gifts? How do we know that the things that we want are "good"?
The "good things" that these passages talk about aren't just money, food, happiness, or love, they are things that are essentially and inherently good. God is good. These "good things" come as a result of us seeking God's heart and God's desires for us. When we seek God's heart, we want the good things that we find: his love of his people, his desire for the nations to know him, his love for his Son, and his love for the church. These are the things that God wants to give us and have us partake in with him, all of the gifts that he bestows on use come as a direct result of us seeking and desiring these gifts.
After this time in the Word, I continued to process and journal a bit and I realized that if I was going to rely on God to work through my funding, I needed to give it up to him and provide him with the space to work. I started praying that God would give me $3500 by the end of the weekend and then provide the rest of the $4500 before I left. I needed to fast from my navcentral account in order to place my faith in God and not the numbers I was seeing. I also realized I had a responsibility to do my part, make calls, write more letters, get meetings with people, and update those that I knew were praying for me. I immediately started making and scheduling calls with my prayer team and I received so much encouragement and assurance from those women that I knew that I was/am exactly where God wanted me to be, funding. Whether I went to Norway or not, God had me in a season of Fundrasing and Preparation. I called people, e-mailed, and Facebooked, and people were so thankful that I reminded them that I still had a need for funding. I called my pastor and shared my need with him and he proposed the idea of praying for me in front of the church on Sunday and asking people to consider giving to my trip to Norway.
On Sunday, I left church with $430 in my pocket, and even more people taking donation cards so that they could contribute online. People came up to me and said they were so excited for me and that I was doing a really wonderful thing by working to further God's kingdom. I celebrated Fathers' Day with my family and then went home to check my account and call my team leaders about my funding. I checked my account and I did the math. With the number in my account plus the money I received that day in church and a few donations a knew were coming in, I would have $3353. God answered my prayer and met the need, and that was with only the donations that I KNEW about. There were other people who had donated/were going to donate that I didn't even know how much they were giving, so God provided more than I asked for. I think I even had someone offer to write a check for the difference of my trip if I didn't get fully funded (I'm a little muddled on this point because I was overwhelmed with thankfulness for the Lord's provision and pretty much in tears, but I am going to make sure to clarify this point in the next few days).
So here I am, a woman who has had so many prayers answered. I still have prayers to get fully funded, but I know that God has the power and the strength to meet my needs. I am so excited to see what God does in my life over the next 5 weeks, when I am actually in Norway. If you would like to donate to my trip, the site is www.navigators.org and you click the "Donor" tab and type my name (Victoria Morrow) and can give electronically. I can't wait to see what God does with the rest of my funding (I still need about $1100) and my trip. I can't wait to go and live the great commission in the small town of Skjolden, Norway.
Prayer Requests:
- safety (I am perhaps the most accident-prone individual on earth)
- My team - that we would live in unity and provide an example of Christian community, loving God, and each other well.
- The people that we will meet this summer: that God would be using us in the lives of those in Skjolden and use them in our lives as well. That we would be able to shine the light of Christ into the lives of those we meet this summer.
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