Grace and peace,
A lot of you know I've been walking on water lately :), and God has truly been blazing the stage!!! From my first step of faith HE has been providing people with the knowledge, wisdom and understanding to get things done, and favor as well. People have been seeing the vision and taking off running with it! Taking it upon themselves to do things I never asked or suggested and it's been beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, as soon as I thought the battles for me were dying down, as soon as I thought I made it through the rough part I get a call from one of my co laborers telling me he wanted to step back from it. Long story short he did, this was a hard blow for me!! This brother was very dear to my heart in being apart of this (HE STILL IS DEAR TO ME AS A BROTHER). It was discouraging.....
But after I spoke with him God told me , "Pray for protection over you and your co-laborers." Something I hadn't been doing like I should of been. You see, I just knew God said do it and I was moving knowing God was gonna bring it about. AND HE IS!!!! But scripture also tells us the enemy roams about seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). So I took that lesson and continued moving although still discouraged..... but God strengthened me through His word,
Proverbs 4:25
" Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you"
He said, keep your eyes on the target, not to the left or right or behind you. And that gave me strength to proceed! But since then different things have been popping up, like our finances taking a turn for the worst( NOT BECAUSE OF CHRISTMAS TIME EITHER!!!!!!!! lol Actually we have not made any purchases for it as of yet, and don't really care to. But they just went astray with no bad stewardship or errors on our part.) And not just our finances but atleast one other family who has stepped out on faith with us.
And what's funny is as I was meeting and praying with a brother (who was a missionary for 13 years) yesterday he began to pray for protection over me and the first thing that rolled off of his tongue was how the enemy will attack your finances amongst other things to try to stop you from doing what God told you to. That prayer in and of itself was encouraging to me!!
Well, fast forward 2:00am December 14th, 2010 my wife and daughter are in the ER, my daughter with very bad asthma and a high fever, and my wife who was just in there last friday for ear ache, soar throat and chest pains now has pink eye. As I was laying there after they left I again felt God say, "go pray for protection over your family and your co laborers and theirs as well." So I went downstairs and entered the throne room of grace BOLDY in faith and cried out for my family and everyone who is involved with this movement.
Hebrews 4:16
" Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
How can this event we're doing be a failure? [BTW that's a rhetorical question! :) ] It can't be!!!!!!!!!!!! Even if the event itself was a dud, as much as I've been stretched, as much as my faith has been increased, as much as God has show me about Him and myself, as much as I've saw Gods provision. It's already a success! Me and others around me have been changed , so if it never went any further it's been a success (although it is going further.) And I will continue to press in and learn all these valuable lessons from my teacher and lean into it!
May God be glorified and His will be done.
I ask humbly that you will be praying with me for me and everyone who is laboring with me in this endeavour to see the gospel proclaimed. Everyone matters whatever part they play, we all need each other.
Also, I want to encourage you to lean into God regardless of the attacks and trials that come your way. He wants to teach you invaluable lessons in and through it. And you'll come out like a pearl.
James 1:2-4
"Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing."
I'm excited to see God glorified!!!!!!!!!!
God is dope,
Israel
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