Yesterday was so cram packed with opportunities, challenges and blessings that it took me a day to process it all.

I began Tuesday with a phone appointment with Ben in Hilton Head Beach, SC. God has been stirring this man’s heart towards a simplistic expression of faith for the past 4 years. He has been to conferences, read books and talked via phone and internet with some of the experts in house church life. We came into contact with each other when I saw a request he had put out over the internet for a church planter to help establish a new work in his community. We spoke for about an hour and both agreed that the Lord seemed to be bringing us together. I gave Ben some thoughts on how to find others who were yearning for the same expression of faith and we will begin working together to establish a new faith community in his community. As you are praying for Ben, ask the Lord to identify for Ben those who will join him in launching this new work.

That phone call was a high point for sure. Shortly there after we received the bummer. Our property manager in Pennsylvania called to inform us that our tenants were moving out at the end of the month, because we had not replaced the roof and it was still leaking. I actually handled this one fairly well, but Carol took it hard. I prayed for her and then left to meet with our other pastor, Mike.

While I was meeting with Mike, the Lord showed me something. The phone call with Ben was the work of God’s kingdom. It is the kind of thing that Jesus tells us to seek first. The Lord reminded me that He had already promised the provisions for my family,and that I needed to focus on seeking the provisions for the opportunities that come about. So the direction was clear, forget about the roof, God already has that in His hands, but instead focus on Ben and the planting efforts in SC, focus on the pastors in India, focus on the Organic Groups…why? The words of Jesus say it all: “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” With this marching order I shifted my focus back to the work of the Kingdom.

As I blogged about earlier, the Lord used a question about my needs to expose and confront an area of pride that was preventing the Lord from caring for me as He intends to. On Monday afternoon I had sent my needs to those who had asked and to my prayer intercessor. My intercessor wrote me back reminding me of a sermon illustration I have used about missing God’s provisions. She also reminded me that God simply wanted me to extend my hands to receive His provisions with a thankful heart.

By the time our Organic Group started last night God had brought forth three separate provisions for our family. One of these provisions was directly related to the tearing down that God did within me the previous afternoon.

One of the things that the Lord has helped me see these past few days was the error of my ways in some of my financial decisions of the past several years. This is what I mean…we currently have two vehicle payments. When we bought these vehicles we prayed and thought we were making prudent decisions by purchasing low mileage vehicles that appeared to be capable of giving a good life of service. There is a problem with those decisions they never took into account that God might ask us to drop everything and I do mean everything to follow Him in a walk of faith. We were not listening for God’s voice or allowing ourselves to be fully dependent upon God’s provisions at that point in our lives. I had a good salary and didn’t expect that would be changing, except perhaps increasing. I realize now that I need to stay as financially lean and mean as I can so that I am never prevented from following where God leads. This morning Carol and I spent some time in confession and repentance of these decisions. We are asking the Lord to show us the way in removing those burdens from our life.