Faith 2

I have returned. Washington is a beautiful place. I enjoyed seeing pretty much the whole thing in 3 days. Seattle, Yakima, Tri Cities, Spokane, and back to Seattle. The mountains were majestic. The wine valleys were breath taking. The Columbia river, awesome. The whole Spirit filled journey, priceless!

Now I must go back; a few weeks, to a time of soul searching and prayer. I spoke to my good friend and brother in Christ, Jacques. He challenged me to be practical and yet pray some specific faithful prayers.

I thought to myself, "Self, you need to stretch your faith."

Prayer one: God I don't have the faith, increase my faith. (Mark 9:24)

Prayer two: (Monday) God, provide the money to fund this move and mission trip to Tri Cities...this week! I almost had to smack my self and laugh out loud after even thinking such a thing. Yet I really wanted to have faith, and I believe that only by believing something unseen and perhaps even impossible, I would be getting it right (Heb 11:1)

Friday: What happened? I didn't get any money! Wait... I had received a thank you card on Thursday at work for helping at a conference. It said "Thank You" and contained a gift card to Starbucks for $5. I found this pretty funny. After some praying I came to the conclusion that God had just said the equivalent of:

Judges 6:14
The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?”

God, in my assessment, said that I have all I need. So that was the end of that.

Prayer three: (prayed at the same time) God, let the job I will have be on the table by June 15th. Now remember, this is almost a month ago. On Friday June 8th I got a call. "Can you come to an interview on Wednesday June 13th at 2pm?"

Friday June 15th: Job offer, and acceptance.

God has increased my faith!

Along with all this awesomeness, I got to fellowship with other faithful brothers and sisters battling to plant the Tri Cities church. They transported me across the state (thank you Alvarados), provided hospitality (Peacocks and Co.), and encouraged and prayed with me. Not only that, I was blessed to witness a young single man get baptized in the river while I was visiting the Spokane Church.

I went down to the river to pray...studying about that good ol' way...

And in the good old vernacular of Yoda: "Fired up, am I.. mmmm yes!"