Thursday, November 7, 2013

Faith Lessons From a Seven Year Old


It has been a really long time since I have written on here. Most of the time I don’t know what to write, or it seems as if I write what I’m thinking it won’t come across the right way. It is so hard to put into words what it is like to be here day in and day out. Some days are great, full of laughing babies, parents coming to adopt and babies learning to walk. Other days are incredibly frustrating for many reasons or no reason at all.  So here is a glimpse into one of the good days and what God has been teaching me lately.
During Bible time we’ve been reading the Old Testament. We had recently read about the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years and how God provided manna and quail from heaven. We had also been praying for the girls’ dad, Troy, who had been on a short- term mission trip to South Sudan. (How’s that for a challenge? A full time missionary who goes on a short- term mission trip!) . We prayed for his safety, and a lot about snakes, and we prayed for the people of South Sudan to know Jesus. One day as the girls were praying one of them said “Jesus please let the South Sudan people have Bibles so they can know you better. Please even let Bibles fall from the sky so they can have them.” Now I have to admit I had to hold back a chuckle because it was just so cute and sweet. But as the week went on I began to wonder why I laughed. The truth is that God has shown over an over in His word that he provides every need of His people.  After all didn’t the manna fall from the sky each day? I realized how weak my faith is sometimes. I don’t pray for God to make Bibles fall from the sky because I don’t truly believe it will happen. Instead I might pray for God to send a person to bring Bibles, because that is more logical and makes more sense in today’s world. We can even justify those circumstances in our own human strength. But Bibles falling from the sky, that we can’t justify. That can only be God. In His word God says “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Matthew 21:22. Somewhere in South Sudan Bibles could literally be falling from the sky because a little girl prayed for it to happen believing that God would do it. I wonder if we don’t see more of these miracles from God because we don’t ask for them. Not that what we do pray for is wrong, but I know I definitely don’t pray big enough most of the time.
We have also been memorizing a verse a week, one for each letter of the Alphabet. It “just so happens” that the verse for this week is “For nothing is impossible with God” Luke 1:37 I think I need to re-learn the definition of nothing. There are a lot of things I act like are impossible for God. There are a lot of things that this world makes seem impossible, joy in the midst of suffering, a lasting faithful marriage, healing for those who are sick or hurt, families for millions of orphaned babies and children and the list goes on and on. But the more I think about these things the more I remember that there is an example of God working in almost every imaginable situation written out for us in the Bible. In each instance the people have incredible faith that God can and will do what they are asking, and God does.
So I have hope that the things I have been praying for will happen in God’s way in His timing, and I pray with more faith knowing nothing is impossible for Him.

                                                Believing there are Bibles falling in Sudan,
                                                                                    Jenny

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