Faith Pushes Boundaries Part 4 of 4a
When I spoke at the Cascade Women’s Ministry Spring Retreat, I had the privilege of speaking 4 times. At first I was a little nervous in thinking I would not have enough content to speak on. Then I remembered my name is Michelle, and I have a lot of words. Hahaha! Also, the topic of Faith is one that could be written on forever. There is no way to exhaust the topic of Faith.
Part 4 is filled with a lot of content of which I am going to break up into smaller chunks for posting and sharing. Therefore, Part 4 will be broken into 4 sub-parts.
Faith Pushes Boundaries
In 2010 Jerry came home from Men’s Bible Study with something upon his heart. Pastor Nate, our former lead Pastor and now District Executive Minister for Converge World Wide, had recently returned with his family from Thailand and Cambodia for their sabbatical. While they were there, they met with one of the pastors Cascade supports and toured a 3 story building. On one level was the pastor’s home. The next level was their church. And on the third level was a space under construction they were hoping to turn into a rehabilitation center for women sold into sex trafficking.
While Nate was on the trip he not only heard this massive need to help rehabilitate lives, but saw it first hand. This lead him to commit Cascade to building out this portion of the building. At the time, Nate believed in faith that God would provide. He had no clue where these funds would come from. Even if that meant refinancing their house to make it happen. Cascade was also just beginning a building campaign to finance the recently purchased Community Life Center Building. His concern: how do you do two HUGE asks at once?
A few days later, Jerry told me about what Nate had shared. Jerry has always lived very generously. WAY more so than me. I had a feeling he was leading to tell me that he would like to help contribute to the project. Then he landed the bomb.
“I think we should pay for all of it.”
Now before y’all start thinking that Jerry and I come from money. We absolutely don’t. We live conservatively with our finances and not lavishly. At the time, we were living in our first house and were trying to save up for a down payment. We had a nest-egg, but it was small. And this was my reaction:
“What do you mean pay for ALL of it? What about MY dreams? And OUR future… What about a new house?”
Then it hit me like cold turkey. I was SO ashamed. Felt utterly stupid and responded to my own questions:
“I heard it.”
Could I BE anymore selfish? (Said like Chandler from FRIENDS.) Here I was living in a lovely house, comfortable, and now complaining that somehow my FUTURE house was more important than helping women know God and rehabilitate them from sex trafficking.
It was such a low moment.
The next question was, “How are we going to pay for this? We don’t have that amount of money in savings.” But we did have stock. So we sold that stock and gave the money in faith, knowing that God’s work was greater than our own comfort. And really - it was and still isn’t our money to begin with… More on that later.
God will push us to take risks FOR HIM. That is, IF we let Him. And the rewards on the other side are SO incredible even when you aren’t sure what those “rewards” will look like, because they may not be in this lifetime.
So many times after giving the gift, Jerry and I would talk about that experience. We would also talk about God’s blessings in return. That they may not be monetarily, but His blessings could and would come elsewhere.
God also says, “test me in this.”
In Malachi 3:6-10 we read:
6 “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.
This truth, this promise of God is what I rest in. Knowing that I can NEVER out give God. Living out our faith will take it from just a mere word, to an action. It will make us uncomfortable because faith isn’t about our comfort. You’ll say, “There’s no way - this seems impossible.” But remember - God is Greater. He will use us to move mountains IF we let Him and TRUST in Him.
Our story doesn’t end with giving this gift and seeing lives changed, it changed our lives as well.
In 2010 we had been house hunting only to be outbid above the asking price during a time in the market that people were begging you to buy their homes. However, this was God’s way of closing the door on those homes, because we asked and prayed for Him to do so if these homes weren’t “it.”
Two years later, in 2012, we began to house hunt again. The day we found our house God took us on a faith journey that would only draw us closer to Him once again.
We had had some hang-ups with our paperwork that kept delaying our offer over the weekend. Then the day finally came when we could get our offer submitted. On the way to meet our agent, I received a call from Jerry telling me our agent was going to be late. I was SO irritated and started right into my rant. But then Jerry stopped me mid-sentence and said, “Well hold on. The reason he is going to be late is because the bank just called him and lowered the price $40,000.”
“Wait! What?! I’m good. I’ll go grab a coffee.”
I was dumbfounded.
After we submitted our offer, Jerry started calculating something and said choking back tears, “The difference between where we were going to originally place our offer, to where the price was dropped is the same amount we gave 2 years ago to have the rehabilitation floor built out.”
The same amount.
“Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.
Jesus says:
In Luke 6:38 “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Where is Jesus pushing your
boundaries of faith?
It may be in trusting Him with your finances. Or maybe it is relationally or trusting that when He says He will provide, HE - WILL - PROVIDE.
Faith pushes the boundaries of comfort. It pushes the boundaries of trust. It pushes the boundaries of not relying on ourselves - but fully and completely on God for everything. And this is a daily - daily - daily gift. It doesn’t mean we place our faith in Jesus once and it’s a “once and done” act. Faith is constant. It is always growing, always being stretched. It is an act of taking up our cross daily and following Him. (Luke 9:23)
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Visit links below for next post in this series:
Bookshelf Faith || What Faith Is Part 3 of 4
Faith Pushes Boundaries || Part 4a of 4d
Faith & Comfort Don’t Mix || Part 4b of 4d
