Jesus said to his disciples, “where your treasure is, there you heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). At the moment as we prepare to leave sunny Worthing with its sparkly blue coastline, all the friends we’ve made in the past four years, a house I love living in, and a church that I love, I have to ask myself: where is my treasure, and therefore my heart, right now? Don’t get me wrong, I am excited about church planting in Halifax: reaching people and sharing Jesus with them, and building a new life for our family. But just now as we enter the last school term down here, and as we explore the housing options in Halifax, constrained by the hard reality that we don’t have anywhere near sufficient funds yet to sustain living there, I get sad, and I get anxious, and sometimes I get downright downcast! My faith is weak. I so easily cling on to worldly comforts rather than trusting in the love and grace of my Father who has already demonstrated how much he loves me by Jesus’ death on the cross, and yet continues to lavishly demonstrate his unfailing love on a daily basis.
Jesus continues by saying:
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:25-30)
Speaking of God’s continued grace, he not-so-subtly brought the above verses to my mind a few days ago at the Tab’s toddler group, CAMEO. My kids even brought home this cute craft (pictured), just so I don’t forget! I need to preach these words to myself. I need to spend more time reminding myself of God’s faithfulness to his children since the beginning of time, and less time dreaming about finding a really nice house.
Mercifully, God’s work in Halifax isn’t dependent on me having all the answers, or the perfect attitude in all circumstances. If I think that it is then I’m making the mistake of thinking that I am doing this work. Thankfully, the success of this work is not dependent on me, my attitudes or my abilities. God alone will build his church, and in his grace he may choose to use us as his tools.
So please pray for us. Please pray that God would increase my faith and help us as a family to be content in every circumstance, trusting in our Heavenly Father and modelling this for our children as God leads us through this process.
Keep leaning hard on Jesus.
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