Another Informal Note:

Hello my friends.

I’m currently in southern Australia where I have been teaching and counseling.  This has been a tremendous time of seeing God work and move in people’s lives, and I stand in awe of our God.  As I have pondered an article for this week, He prompted me to call Becky and tell her to let me do the mailing this week, and He has asked that I write informally to you as He sometimes has asked in the past. 

 I guess the thing that I am pondering the most today is the faithfulness of God, even in the midst of my own lack of faith.  My life is so full of fear and doubt sometimes but in faith I act according to what I sense Him leading me to do.  I rarely feel good about it and my own emotions will often rip at me.  Yet God continually puts me in situations where I have nothing to give and no clue what He is doing; then He tells me to begin speaking or doing things while trusting Him to lead my thoughts, actions, and words.  It is a terrifying place to be when you know if God doesn’t show up you are done!  Yet He asks us to walk in faith, and not by sight.  I am amazed at my own hard heartedness towards God and how He continually has to put me in situations that are so far out of my comfort zones, just to keep me soft and dependent upon Him. 

The next time you feel clueless about what God is asking of you in a situation, act in faith.  Be willing to be in a position where you are at His mercy.  Take a risk, be willing to face complete and total humiliation, and then see what God does.  It might be you in the flesh trying to generate God’s work, or it might be God’s leading and working through you.  Either way, you will hear from God and you will learn to grow in deeper dependence upon Him.  “…Our Redeemer is faithful and True.”

I would appreciate your prayers over the rest of this week as I slowly make my way back to the U.S.  

Shalom my friends.
Mike