I had my moments of thinking we are this very morning. Tony came in and let me know that we had been warned again about our decision to move down to the inner city.
This time, it was by a person who had lived just 2 streets down from where we are hoping to buy.
And I'll be honest - Tony walked into the kitchen and my heart sunk;
Maybe we really are a touch crazy.
I want to walk into this with eyes wide open. I don't want to romanticize or to downplay or to really even become detached emotionally from all of the, but *this* could happen...!'s
Yes, it may be dangerous.
But I keep thinking of that one situation and the brokenness that surrounded it. And how Tony and I had prayed over it just on Wednesday and how on Thursday, God threw open the doors and provided an unexpected opportunity for Tony to connect a few of the fragments back together.
God has a plan for these kids.
An amazing plan.
How do I know?
Because after that unexpected moment God opened up, havoc was wreaked in the hours following and if God has a plan, satan does too and we are in a spiritual battle that I'm afraid we have become numb to.
The words spoken this morning were said out of concern and there is something so precious in the care of another. I have wanted to tread carefully when these words are said because what happens if it's a caution from God?
I sat on the couch while Tony walked into the kitchen, cradled my coffee mug in hand and began to pray. And there are those verses in Exodus - the ones that recount the Hebrews leaving Egypt with Pharaoh's army in pursuit...and it was there, in the dark of the night that God stood between the two as a pillar of fire and protection for His people.
I'm not saying that nothing bad could or would happen to us.
It could.
But.
I know that God is good,
and even if the worst did happen,
(and I pray that it won't)
I know that this life is small in the light of eternity and if we lay down our lives for Him, we will gain something infinitely greater.
We aren't called, as Christ-followers, to live a life cushy and safe. We are called to be a light in the darkest places. To be like Him - and Jesus? He entered into the dark of humanity - took on our skin and came to the hurting and the lost.
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To love like that?
It feels scary and reckless and a little nutty...
but even if there was just one that He had a plan for? It would be worth it. It would be worth giving up our safe and secure to be used by His Hands.
Tony? He was walking down to the main building the other day - kept trying to come up with a quote of Jim Elliot's and couldn't remember it.
But I believe that those words were swirling around his head for a reason,
and that reason is God.
Because when he got to the office he was heading towards, there on the whiteboard in front of him was this written down,
He is no fool who gives what
he cannot keep to gain that which
he cannot lose.
~ Jim Elliot
He isn't going to leave us without Himself. He will be there - in the dark and in the day.
(Photo credit: Gane' Bougeois)
