What gets you excited? What makes your blood start pumping?
...maybe going to a basketball game when it comes down to the last basket at the end of the game with a rival team…the buzzer is about to sound, the ball is in the air, and the shot determines the winner of the game. That is an exciting moment!
Ok that is where we feel we are with our dream for Harmony Acres. God gave the desire, and after putting the dream out there and acting on it, we have horses, hay, most of staff, house parents, therapists, multiples contractors offering their services for free, found what we think is a perfect property, people to help us move in and clean whenever we need it, and now our first resident making preparations to come. Oh, and today, we just heard about two more kids that might be our next residents! That doesn’t even count the others that we heard of that are in need of a place like this that will just come out of the woodwork when Harmony Acres is operational. Go figure!
Have you observed how, in the last few weeks, God has put Harmony Acres together piece by piece? Wow, all we can say is, our God is amazing! That IS truly exciting but it gets better…
If you look at the list of things God has done, everything is general but every line item has many details that only God could work out and provide so specifically for. Here is a case and point: One man has two horses to give us and a field of hay if we can provide his firewood for the winter. Well, it “just so happens” that our friend (who will be on our staff) works at a place where they continually generate scrap logs that make great firewood that he can take for free. God has completely provided for that. This is just one of many amazing stories we could tell of God’s provision.
We are coming close to a point where we feel like everything is about to pull together except for possession of land, but it is also at the center of what we need in order to move forward.
In order to turn in our licensing and nonprofit paperwork, we must have a property for Harmony Acres. That may seem like a really big mountain, and in a way it is, but in another way if God wants Harmony Acres to move forward, then He will either see this detail through, or He’ll come up with a better plan than we had in mind. We are reminded in Philippians that God’s character is to complete the work that He starts. He won’t set us up, then hang us out to dry. This is a very little thing in His economy. He owns the cattle on 1000 hills (and that’s a gross understatement) and maybe more appropriately He created and owns the entire universe of resources and God has no reason to operate in scarcity or with a poverty mindset. We also feel strongly that God will provide the property debt free. We are not saying we know exactly what God is going to do, but we do know there is some reason He is allowing all the other pieces to come together, and it is because He has a plan. Our intention is to be on pace with Him and not allow ourselves to get behind or ahead of what He is doing.
So, in a way we feel like Moses might have when leading the people towards the promised land but found himself trapped with the Red Sea lying in the way of safety and progress. He could see across to where God would keep them safe and provide so many things…and where he would be one step closer to the abundant and beautiful land flowing with milk and honey.
We can see so many things that we could do for Him to help needy and hurting children, but the “Red Sea” that we are stopped against is the need for property to function on. God has a way that He has not shown us to meet the need, but we wait expectantly and excitedly for God to roll back the water and march us into Harmony Acres at exactly the right moment. Is it ok to expect a miracle? Why not, when He has already done so many things. We would not be where we are without God and the incredible things He’s already done. As we look forward to what God can do through this ministry, we see how He would be honored to rescue many of his little children from lives of slavery in their own “Egypt,” as He surely wants to lead them to a promising new land full of provision of shelter, safety, love, and most importantly, those in eternal proportions.
We were reminded in church on Sunday in John 5: 14-15:
“Now this is the confidence we have before Him: whenever we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked Him for” (HCSB).
In Psalm 37 we are reminded that when we delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us our hearts desires.” Does that mean that anything we desire will be granted? No, of course not, but it does mean that when we delight in the Lord, His desires will become our desires and that is how when we pray according to His will which is now our desire, He promises to hear and and give what we ask. That is powerful! No one has a corner on God’s will, but these verses expect us to have faith in a powerful, providing God. What really makes it powerful, I think, is when what we are desiring is precisely what we are told is true religion in its most basic form…loving and caring for others, namely the orphans (and widows) in their distress, or anguish. We don’t know how God is going to answer necessarily, but we know He will provide a way to help these kids…we just happen to think it will be by providing some property soon.
The auction for the property is this Thursday.
We have no idea what will happen, but we are preparing for rain. Our first resident is tentatively coming later this month. We are getting ready for whatever happens. We feel it would be best to be in our property by the time our first resident arrives. We don’t know the details, but we do know God has been working in amazing ways each day up to this point, and that He is in control.
We praise him for his mighty acts…past, present, and future!
Are you excited about what God is doing? We are…maybe you can tell! Join us as we pray for God to do an almighty act in His timing!
And they were all amazed at the greatness of God. –Luke 9:43b
No comments:
Post a Comment