The True Treasure

Just got off the phone this afternoon with my agency. If the department in Ethiopia doesn’t write the letter of recommendation the court is waiting on by tonight, then we have to ask for a new court date. If she does write it tonight, we should pass! Otherwise, it’ll be another 2-3 weeks for a new court date...She said the woman in Ethiopia is very, very busy, which is not really good news. To compound the issue even more, our attorney is representing five other cases tomorrow as well. One of my friends who has her court date tomorrow said that she's "assuming that she won't pass." None of us want the extreme disappointment that comes from not realizing your high expectation.

I know the struggle between "assuming you won't pass" so we're not let down and believing, in faith. At the same time, I think God kind of likes it when things are really difficult from a human perspective, because it allows Him to do things that only He can do. A great thing I heard last week in our pastor's message, "Avoid the temptation to bring God down to our level." I know that I do this sometimes without even realizing it. I just look at the circumstances, and if they're too hard, then I prepare myself for the letdown. I'm trying to handle this with, "Your best, God, but come on and make it happen!"

I'd like to share something that happened to us that is pretty relevant to the situation... Sorry, it's a little long...

9 years ago, Eric & I were flying to Australia for the Hillsong Conference on standby passes. For five days, they wouldn't let us on the flight, because they were taking fruit over (of all things) and the flight was too heavy for more passengers. (They got more money for fruit than standy passengers... Go figure. It was just before the 2000 Olympics and I guess the athletes had to have their apples - LOL!) Day after day, we hung out in San Francisco, questioning whether we had heard God wrong and He didn't want us to go to the conference after all. We had watched the rest of our team - 6 others that we were the leaders of - all get on the plane without us. It was one of the toughest and most growing experiences of my life.

We had a lot of conversations about whether God was really involved in it and whether our prayers made a difference - after all, we didn't feel that they had up til then. Finally on the fifth night, we decided that if we didn't make it on the plane we would not go (The first five days were our fun days and the conference started the next day. All our "fun" was spent in SF. Not that it's not a great place, but it's in our backyard and a far cry from Australia!) cuz God clearly didn't want us to. They were about to close the plane door with us still in the terminal and the attendant was telling me that we weren't going to make it on. Eric was down the hall in a phone booth praying like he's never prayed before. He told me that he prayed with a confidence that really, really believed that God would get us on that plane and almost "told God" (hope you all understand what I mean by that) what He needed to do. I liken it to telling the mountain to move...

All of a sudden, the ticket agent got a phone call from the pilot who told her that the weight was less than they expected and they could take 2 more passengers. They actually began to argue about it because the ticket agent's info said otherwise. After a couple of minutes of going back and forth, another ticket agent handed me our tickets and said, "Hurry up and get on that plane before they change their minds!" You can imagine the joy and how much in awe we were that we had just made it on that plane. It truly was against all odds.

I have absolutely no doubt that had we - and my husband in particular - not prayed as fervently and with as much confidence as we did, would never have made it on that plane. God changed the weight loads to get us on and we absolutely recognized that it was His work. We went to that conference with a different kind of faith than we had ever had before and God did an amazing work in our lives and the lives of so many others as a result. (There's so much we took back from that conference - it was life-changing and changed the way we lead worship...) If we hadn't gotten on that plane then, I would have had no doubt that God had a plan in us not going - there was nothing left to chance.

All that to say - I can't afford to assume I won't pass. I feel like I can't leave anything on the table... I've got to let it all go and give God the best of my faith. I think I've mentioned before that I felt God gave me the date of June 23rd as an embassy date 2-3 months ago. Tomorrow would be the last possible day to pass to even have a chance at that date. God works in mysterious ways and if we don't pass, that's really o.k., cuz I'll know He really means it either way... Hope that all makes sense :).

Expectantly Waiting on God for His Best!
TrueMom

BTW... we got to fly Business Class all the way to Australia!