What I Know

I am happy to report that I know God saves and delivers. Some of you might think this is a statement someone makes when they first get to know the Lord, meeting Him as their Savior and coming into awareness of His undying love and merciful grace.

But I'm just talking about what I know, right now, about God. What I really know.In little ways that are very big to me, I have seen God deliver me.

Yesterday I fought a black cloud of despair over me. I had not had coffee with my best friend, I was alone most of the day, writing, planning and surveying our financial landscape and trying to come up with a game plan for more income so that we do not "go down with the ship". I contemplated going back to a full time sales job- even though it would mean postponing, again, my dream and call to write and speak full time.

I haven't worked a job outside the home since over 4 years ago, when I was working a sales job in insurance so that my husband could build our house. Did I ever tell you that we had a beautiful home, on 3 quiet, green acres- a place where I walked around, those first months living there, in amazement, thinking, "this is my home." I feel the same sadness and longing as the woman who speaks in an old voice at the beginning of the movie, "...I had a home in Africa." I had it, we sold it, we journeyed onward.

Let me get to the part where God delivers me from sadness and regret over what we had in the past, how we lost momentum, how we're trying to get it back but are not sure if we can. I know God is with me on this journey to get "over it" and get "on with it". I know He is because He's been filtering everything that happens to me, big and small, so that I see His heart even as I am being "tested." I can tell He does not want me to faint. I can tell He cares that I am encouraged- because everywhere I go, as I keep a running conversation with Him (that's the key), He is letting me- no, making me, see that this lengthening and strengthening of myself is all for the good.

I don't have to work it up- this faith. This morning I heard Him tell me so clearly He wants me to KNOW what He is doing. He is not trying to get me to go around the mountain one more time, needlessly, so that I learn patience and endurance. (I do have need of them, but they can't be the only thing I major in).

God, instead, is trying to get me off that circuitous path of never concluding correctly, and therefore not experiencing, the breakthroughs He has in mind for me- that will cause breakthroughs in my kid's lives and for generations to come. He wants me to KNOW, when all is said and done, that HE gives me the ability and power to prosper, to progress, to be a pilgrim of purpose in this world.


2 And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD. ... 5 You should know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the LORD your God chastens you....11 “Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God ..... 16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end— 17 then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’
18 “And you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. (Deut 8)

What a waste of a wilderness experience if you come out of the wilderness and still don't KNOW Who led you through it, or what you were supposed to learn from it. God just wants me to know that I live by every drop of nourishment and provision He gives- whether its financial provision, or soul-provision: what gives me light when I can't see ahead, hope when I want to despair, and vigor and ability to prosper.

In the future, when I am at the pinnacle of things going well- in that moment, I should not be any less convinced or more convinced that He is with me. In either state, He gives me the ability to more than survive. His purpose in these darker days is that "He might make me know" that I live by all He gives me, and its more than enough to get back into the saddle...again.