Grass Roots

“Above all let us learn how holy and spiritual-minded all believers should be.  They should never aim at any standard lower than that of the Sermon on the Mount.  Christianity is eminently a practical religion.  Sound doctrine is its root and foundation, but holy living should always be its fruit.  And if we would know what holy living is, let us often bethink ourselves who they are that Jesus calls “blessed”. (quote from Ryle in his commentary on Matthew 5:1-12)

Praise the Lord for the teachers that He has given to us all in order that He might encourage us and build us all up into one body with Jesus Christ as our Head.  Praise the Lord for sending us His Holy Spirit which guides us and comforts us and transforms us through the power of His Holy Word.  Truly, truly, without Him we can do absolutely nothing!

Praise the Lord for the work He is doing in our marriage and our relationships with our children and with the brethren.  Praise the Lord for His perfect love and grace and mercy toward us all.

May God, our Father, truly be glorified in us all today!

Praise God for our “Folks” serving the King of kings and Lord of lords down in Costa Rica.  May God truly bless the work He is working in and through them and their children.   May our Father bring us all back together soon.  We love and miss you all.  In the words of our Johnny Touchet…”keep on keepin on”.

10.8.2004 (a letter to my wife)

the thought of Aidan mesmerized by the television bringing on a trance that causes his thoughts and imaginations to cease…haunts me this morning.  i don’t want this for our children.  i don’t want our children to be raised by mr. rogers, or sesame street, or csi.  i am responsible to shepherd and protect my family from the wicked one (clinging all the while to Jesus Christ, the true Shepherd and Protector of us all)…from sin…and at times it seems from our own worldly desires.  God teaches that we are to not conform ourselves to the world but are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds…how can this be done if our minds are zoned out into non thinking mode in front of the “idiot box”?  this is a battle our whole family struggles with.  we must seek guidance from our Lord…we must seek our satisfaction and pleasure in Him and in His mission.  we must guard our hearts, minds, souls with all our strength from this world.  we must protect our children and lead them in the way of Christ, which is narrow and upward…instead of the world’s wide road which leads down into destruction and hell!  television isn’t so much the problem…the heart of it all is disobedience, bad stewardship of time, pride, uncontentment, lack of reverance for God, lack of hatred for sin, and ultimately a lack of love for each other, our children,  or the Lord Jesus Christ who died for us so that we might live for Him.  you know that this has been a struggle for me for some time…and i am constantly beaten down by it…but this can not and should not be so…Christ is our strength and He is the mighty Conquerer of all sin and the world…in Him the victory in this battle is ours.  i must learn this.  we must learn to use His time more wisely.  we must learn to redeem the time.  we must learn to pursue love.  we must learn to protect each other and our children from things of this world.  we must train ourselves in godliness.  we must live for Christ and must die, daily, to this world.  we must be led by the Spirit of God as He teaches us through His living Holy Word…for IT is the Lamp unto our feet and the Light unto our path.  we must chose for ourselves this day…this day, whom we will serve.  we must strive to serve and love the Lord with ALL our heart, mind, soul, and strength.  our souls and our children’s souls depend on it.  may God give us all we need to be faithful in the raising up of our sons!

i am sorry, Natalie, that i have failed to guide our family in Christlikeness…and in godliness.  i am sorry that i have not loved God or you enough to guard you from the world and sin.  i am sorry that i have not loved God’s Word or my family enough to lead us in the teachings of His Truth which is our daily Bread, Water, Life, and Future.  i am sorry, Natty, for not redeeming the time with you and for allowing us to be sucked up in worldliness and stagnant unusefulness.  i make the pledge to guide us from this point on as best as i can by the leading of the Holy Spirit in the way of the Lord God…which leads to everlasting life.  i pray that God will forgive me and help me to turn 180 so that i might honor Him with my life as i lead us Homeward by following Jesus of Nazareth to the far off country.  please prayerfully consider ways that we can redeem our time and protect the hearts and minds and souls of one another thus setting an example to our children of how to honor Christ through love and devotion to Him and to each other.  the children our indeed watching…may God open their eyes to see Him in all His beauty and glory and may we not from monday-saturday tear down violently with our lives what was proclaimed to us on Sunday.

i love you Natalie…please forgive me for my lack of shepherding the little flock the Lord God has entrusted unto me.  may God grant us grace to overcome our sin and the wicked one who seeks to discourage, destroy, and devour us and our little children.

simple moment

all that i can think of in this moment is something that i just read a few minutes ago…”sometimes the whitest lilies grow up out of the dirtiest ponds”…the author was speaking of Jesus of Nazareth of Galilee.  may it be that God teaches us all that is found in His name “Jesus”…and “Nazareth” and of “Galilee” and may that lead us to consider the title give to Him on the Cross at Calvary: “Jesus of Nazareth.  The King of the Jews”

does anything good come out of us?

come and see…Jesus of Nazareth!!!

a silent mule, the lollards, and an uneducated servant

strap a bundle of Bibles, food, water, and the basic essentials onto the back of a mule and he will go where he is led.  give the Lollards a bundle of written sermons, tracts, and Bibles, send them out and they will get “the Word out”.  give an uneducated servant a bucket of water and instruction and he will wash his masters feet.  these three pictures have been in my mind this morning.  praise Christ for them all.  He does not need me for anything.  He has given us the grace to labor for Him, in love, for His glory, in the fields of the nations.  as we “Go” anywhere, surely we can be as a mule, a lollard, and an uneducated servant of the most High God.  to be privelaged enough to have Him strap His Word onto our backs with food and water for the hungry and weary….to be given written sermons, tracts, and Bibles….and a bucket full of water (along with the Spirit of humility working within us)…and then to be sent out to serve His beloved ones in simple devotion to Him and His mission….this is the treasure Natalie and i truly desire.  Lord lead us in Your ways for us!

“to live is Christ and to die is gain!”

“I walked out to the hill just now. It is exalting, delicious.  To stand embraced by the shadows of a friendly tree with the wind tugging at your coattail and the heavens hailing your heart, to gaze and glory and to give oneself again to God, what more could a [Christian] ask?

Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth.  I care not if I never raise my voice again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him.

Perhaps, in mercy, He shall give me a host of children that I may lead through the vast star fields to explore His delicacies whose fingers’ ends set them to burning.  But if not, if only I may see Him, smell His garments, and smile into my Lover’s eyes, ah, then, not stars, nor children, shall matter– only Himself.”

–Jim Elliot  

(“Jim Elliot and four companion missionaries to the Auca Indians of South America were martyred in 1956, when Jim was just 29.  The deaths of these men had repercussions around the world as their story was told in books by Elliot’s widow, Elisabeth;  Through Gates of Splendor and Shadow of the Almighty.   Shortly after the massacre, many of the Auca Indians became Christians.  Their story is one of the most dramatic of the history of the twentieth-century church”)

“to our Folks”

“Thy way, not mine, O Lord, however dark it be:  Lead me by Thine own hand:  choose out the path for me.  Smooth let it be or rough, it will be still the best;  Winding or straight, it leads right onward to Thy rest. 

I dare not choose my lot;  i would not, if i might;  Choose thou for me, my God:  so shall i walk aright.  Take thou my cup, and it with joy or sorrow fill, as best to Thee may seem;  Choose thou my good and ill.

Choose thou for me my friends, my sickness or my health;  Choose thou my cares for me, my poverty or wealth.  Not mine, not mine the choice, in things or great or small;  Be thou my Guide, my Strength, my Wisdom, and my All.”                -Horatius Bonar, 1857

O, that our Christ would stir within our hearts a greater  surrender to Him as our loving Guide, Strenght, Wisdom, and Shepherd.  He has a plan and He knows what is best for each and every one of us.  Truly, for Natalie and myself, He has chosen our friends for us…and He is knitting our hearts together with theirs no matter how great the distance may be.  no matter how far physically we are from one another, our hearts grow closer day by day as we are led Homeward to where our Father, our Messiah, lives and dwells with His little ones.  we shall soon be Home.  How great is that thought.  yet, while we are here lets continue to encourage one another daily to pursue love, peace, hope, mercy, grace, and a greater passion for His mission and a greater compassion for His people.  yesterday, Danny Aiken in his opening address to the students, challenged us to begin to pray in a new way…he told us to no longer pray, “Lord, should i go to foreign missions”, but to boldly pray to the Lord of the Harvest, “Lord, unless You say no…i shall go!!!”  why?  because He desires that all nations, tribes, tongues, and people groups hear the Good News of Jesus Christ!!!  this is why He came.  this is what God desires for the Father loves the Son (john 3:35-36).  pursue love…love one another just as He has loved us.  all of us have been gifted by His Holy Spirit at conversion…and each of us have a blessed responsibility to be on mission with God.  we have been made “lights in the world”, and “ministers of reconciliation”, and “children of God.”  pursue love!  there is no greater love than this..a man lays down his life for his friends.  Danny added, “…unless God says no…there is no reason not to Go!! for He has already told us to Go in His Word!!”  this is not to be seen as a burden to any of His children…this should be our joy and desire.  some of us may never touch foreign missions with our physical feet….but our knees can definitely touch every square inch of this earth we are sojourning through in prayer.  Remember that His only prayer requests to us while He walked on this earth was that we would pray to Him to send laborers out into His harvest for the laborers are few!  our churches are full and overflowing with gifted saints of light who have been given a new heart saturated and sanctified in love.  God has given our lives meaning and purpose and all that we need to fulfill what He desires.  all i hope is that, together as a family in Christ, we would all seek daily to encourage each other to use the giftedness God has given us to build each other up in the body of Christ and to daily encourage each other to seek to be a laborer in His fields…to those who have never heard.  may God unite us all here and abroad and may we all with one voice praise Him who is worthy of all praise.   thank you Jacob and Courtney for your faithfulness to me and Natalie in the daily encourage you have given us in word and in example, even while you are in Costa Rica.  may God use you both to move more of us into missions.  we love you very much!!!

“without love”

without love the best of us…and all that we do is worth nothing…we are nothing!  all the studying in the world will amount to nothing if one is not a doer of the Word.  hearing amounts to nothing if by faith we do not walk in the Light just as He is in the Light.  yet the desires within us at times is not to love or walk humbly before our God.  truly truly our flesh is warring against our soul.  the world hates us and satan is seeking to deceive, devour, and destroy us.  we must cling to Christ Jesus.  we must pray without ceasing to have new hearts daily…to have our desires changed into what He desires of us all.  we must strive for holiness and love and peace and grace and mercy knowing all the while that He has promised to give us all of Himself when we, as little children, come to Him with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength.  we must love Him and yet we cannot change our own hearts to do this.  we need His daily grace.   our hearts must be changed…we must not be ashamed of the Gospel of God for it alone is the power of God unto salvation…it alone has the power to give us new hearts.  we need desparately hearts of flesh and not hearts of stone.  we need to engulf ourselves in the deep deep love and Word of Jesus.  we need to drown ourselves in His grace and mercy.  we must forsake all that we have and all that we desire and all that we are for His name’s sake.  He will finish all that He has begun in each one of His little ones.  He will not fail.  He has spoken to our hearts and has revealed to us the desires of His own heart as written in His Holy Word.  He has alowed us to enter into His heart and to hear the very desire of His soul…His only prayer request to us while He walked on this earth was that we should “pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send laborers into His field for the harvest is white and the laborers are few.”  He is telling us to ask Him to throw laborers into His fields for their are many of His own still lost among the nations of the world.  He forsook the pleasures, comforts, rest, peace, the paradise of Heaven with His Father to come into a sin-diseased, dark, violent, corrupt, enemy land in order that He might, through His brutal violent blood soaked death, save each and every one of us who call upon Him as Father.  are we not willing to do the same.  as Thomas Kempis has well said it: “do we seek comfort and rest and pleasure from this world”…(the very world who hated and killed our Lord…the very world that He has told us hates us because it hated Him)…”do we seek to walk through this life comfortably when Christ Jesus walked the way of suffering”….love soaked suffering!!!  as Bonhoeffer has said, “when Christ bids a man to follow Him He bids Him to come and die.”  surely we are all to deny self, take up our crosses daily and follow Him.  but we must not soften what He is saying because of our own selfish desires to stay comfortable and living in pleasures using Grace as a cloak to pursue that which He has not called us to pursue.  our only Security is in Him.  He is our Provider.  He is the only place where true Joy and Peace and Rest and Happiness can be found.  He wants us to have Him…He wants us to live and be with Him.  we must discipline ourselves to follow Him clinging tightly everyday to the promises He has revealed to us.  He clearly tells us to “take up our crosses, daily” and then ”Follow Me!”  where was He going when He said that.  He had fixed His eyes on calvary.  He was going to die…physically.  we must mortify our flesh daily through prayer and desparate clingings to His Holy Spirit, yet we also must be ready and willing and in fact pursuing to die violently for Christ.  not that we make ourselves martyrs..but that we are always ready to be crushed, beaten, deastroyed for His names sake…we must be willing to “GO” simply because He has said “GO”.  if we asked our children to do something and then their response was, “well, i don’t feel that my parents want me to obey” how would we respond?  we cannot allow our feelings to dominate our thinking.  as we hear all the time…”think right, do right, then feel right”.  we are called to be transformed through the renewing of our minds.  fact: there are millions of people around the world who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ.  fact: they must hear the Gospel in order to be saved.  fact: the laborers ARE few.  fact: this nation and this world is not our home.  fact: He desires that every nation, tribe, people, and tongue worship Him.  fact: He said “Go” and make disciples of all the nations teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. 

fact: this is His desire.   can we say that we are a people after God’s own heart?  are we pursuing His desires for the nations simply because we love Him and desire to honor and please Him just as His Son Jesus did?  are we submitting to His will for His glory?  are we thinking more about our comforts or feelings or pleasures here or more about what Jesus of Nazareth did for each of us?  are we storing up Grace in barns or are we being used by God to channel His grace to all those around us?  are we striving to be nothing, to be servants, to be forgotten so that He will be exalted? He became poor so as to make many rich.  are we pursuing violently with all our moments the very same things?  our lives are all about Him.  He loves us all and has demonstrated this love by being crucified for us.  He has given us the Message that must be proclaimed.  have we known Him?  have we been with Him?  have we seen Him, touched Him, felt Him,  been made alive by Him?  He was moved with compassion and wept bitterly for the many sheep without a shepherd.  He desires that His lost ones be found.  we are scattered every where.  there are places in this world that do not have any one to preach and proclaim Christ.  think.  we must fight to be apart of His work.  america is not God’s nation.  He has one nation that He is gathering from all nations and that nation is a holy nation that will live forever with Him in paradise.  this world is fading away and many millions are perishing.  we have the Gospel.  we have Christ.  we have God as our Father and the Spirit of God within us.  we have His Word and His promises.  we have prayer and His power.  we are invincible…what can man, or nations, or satan do to us.  the One who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world.  what can stop His Word from going forth?!  nothing!!  “GO”.  will He tell us to Go and then not be with us?  NO…for He has promised to never ever leave nor forsake us.  there are no closed countries to the Gospel (as i have heard a preacher say recently)…you can get in to any country in the world.  you can get in…you may not get back out.  beatings away us.  imprisonment.  persecution (mental and physical).  but what is all this momentary afflictions compared to the height and weight and depth of the eternal glory set before us.  God, please change the desires of our hearts.  make us think and see and love like You do.  put into each one of Your children the very Heart of Jesus so that we will not waste our short lives on temporal things.  make us blind to the world’s desires…keep us from temptations.  strip us of all of our idols and make us sold out, spilled out, and spent for Christ work among all peoples, tribes, tongues and nations.  make us live as pilgrims and strangers.  remind us that this is not our home.  this is enemy territory that we are dwelling on.  make us ones who no longer live to eat and entertain ourselves with the pleasures of this world…set our hearts and longings on our Home with You.  drqw us near to You and lead us Home to You down the road You have chosen…the narrow road.  take away our sin-full contentment with living routine lives around meaningless temporals with no eye on eternity….make us, Your children, extreme in everything.  help us to be filled with zeal, love, humility, wisdom, grace, meekness, and joy.  make us fully aware of our dependence on You.  make us daily celebrate our “dependence day”…every day clinging to You to use earthen vessels such as us to take Your Gospel every where.  smash us like Gideons’ lanterns…let Your light pour out.  break us like bread and feed the multitudes.  strip us of our pride and false securities…open our eyes so that we might see and worship You and then send us out, scatter us across the nations for Your glory.  take all that we have and use it for the advancement of our King across the white fields.  make us hungry for the salvation of all of those whom You poured Your blood out for.  make us aware of the many corners of the world that need us to GO.  make us Go.  for Your names sake.  give us true LOVE!!

pray without ceasing.  give up everything for Him and for His mission.  Go!!

“the Father Loves the Son” (John 3:35)

“devotio moderna”

“Jesus has many who love His kingdom in heaven, but few who bear His cross.  He has many who desire comfort, but few who desire suffering.  He finds many to share His feast, but few His fasting.  All desire to rejoice with Him, but few are willing to suffer for His sake.  Many follow Jesus to the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the cup of His passion.  Many admire His miracles, but few follow Him to the humiliation of His cross.  Many love Jesus as long as no hardship touches them…  They who love Jesus for His own sake, and not for the sake of comfort for themselves, bless Him in every trial and anguish of heart, no less than in the greatest joy.  And were He never willing to bestow comfort on them, they would still always praise Him and give Him thanks.” 

“If a man knows what it is to love Jesus, and to disregard himself for the sake of Jesus, then he is really blessed.  We have to abandon all we love for the one we love, for Jesus wants us to love Him only above all other things.  The love of creatures is fickle and unreliable, but the love of Jesus is trustworthy and enduring.  The man who clings to created things will fall with them when they fall, but a man who embraces Jesus will be upheld for ever.  It is Jesus whom you must love and keep to be your friend;  when all else fades away, He will not leave you, nor let you perish at the end.  Whether you will or no, you must one day leave everything behind.  Keep yourself close to Jesus in life as well as death;  commit yourself to His faithfulness, for He only can help you when everything else will fail.”

“Grant me, Lord, to know all that i should know, to love what i should love, to esteem what most pleases you, and to reject all that is evil in Your sight.  Let me not judge superficially by what i see, nor be influenced by what i hear from ignorant men, but with true judgement to discern between things spiritual and material, and to seek Your will and good pleasure at all times and above all else.”

—Thomas a Kempis from “the Imitation of Christ”  {ca. 1380-1471)

learning to walk with God

days come where the heat of the day and the sin-full frustrations of my own heart rage up against the very God in whom my heart longs after, adores, and desires.  i am struggling today with longing to run before i have learned to walk.  idleness leads to idolatry and bitterness and covetousness.  even good works can be cloaked with blood soaked rags of sin.  but Christ is faithful.  and though i may be in a season of shadows…He is here and is the Light of my soul and heart and mind.  God is with us.  God is for us.  goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives.  He leads us with joy and gladness.  the Spirit of God is in us.  truly, truly who can come against us.  satan may ask to sift us like wheat yet we know He has prayed for us.  He will not forsake us for He alone is faithful when we are faithless.  o that He would break my heart and crush my pride…that He would put His heart into my chest and give me a compassion and longing for all those who are as sheep without a shepherd.  how frustrated my little son gets when i ask him to wait…and yet do i not rage against God when my heart desparately longs for something and He whispers to me…”wait on the Lord, My Son” or “not yet”!!  how gracious He is to teach me this way.  how long-suffering and patient and loving and good He is that He has poured His mercy and grace out on us.  Lord, my heart longs to serve You and honor You and yet i am weak and wicked and unfaithful in all my ways.  yet i am thankful that You are all that i am not.  for You are strong and good and  faithful in all Your ways. 

fix my eyes and heart on You today.

forgive me of my sins against You and help me to walk in the light just as You are in the light.  shepherd my soul homeward to You and increase my longing for holiness, love, and a willingness to serve in and for Your names sake.  protect me from pride and from foolishness.  sanctify us for Your own glory.

ask Him in the secret place!!

a short update on all that the Lord has done over the last few weeks since our move to southeastern:

we left south carolina on may 5th in the early morning with only around $881.00 to our name.  immediately we stopped to top off both cars with fuel which took about $60.  we had figured from the start that we would need at least $840.00 to pay for housing as soon as we arrived.  we were already starting in the hole.  yet, our trust was in God and we believed in our hearts that He would provide all our needs, as He has promised in His Word.  we prayed that morning, as we had been for all the days before this one, that He would give us our “daily bread” and that He would do it in such a way that only He would gain all the glory and praise even within our own hearts.  His glory before us and all around us was and is our constant desire.  our journey to wake forest would take us about 4 and a half hours.  the Folks (from Mt. Moriah) and Tim Smerdon (from Providence) all were traveling with us pulling trailers full of our stuff.  that in itself was answer to prayer…that is a whole other story.  about an hour out from wake forest natalie and i stopped one more time for fuel…the gage in my car isn’t always reliable and i felt as if i better put in a few more bucks before we go any farther.  i had thought that maybe $10-$15 more would cover it but i put my trust in the Lord to lay it on natalies heart to decide.  she gave me $10 and we were off again.  side note- we had went ahead of the Folks and Tim so as to get all our paper work done way before they arrived so as to make the move smoother.  this itself turned into a blessing for concerns had arisen in our hearts concerning the lack of funds in our pockets and the fact that we just traveled all this way with our family and with the Folks and Tim and knowing that we did not have enough money.  the remeberance of words of the skeptics began creeping into our minds…yet God was faithful to remind us of all that He had done up until this point and our hearts quickly turned to God in prayer that He would silence the mouths of all who opposed Him.  we increasingly every mile of our journey believed more and more that God had called us to this and that He would not fail us for His own names sake.  we arrived at the housing office at 3:15pm.  we prayed and then i went in to get our keys.  i told the lady in housing my name and stated, “i think we are moving in today!”  natalie and i had determined that no matter what happened at housing we were staying in wake forest and trusting in Him to provide.  The Lord had given us every single thing that we had needed to get here and we were not going back now.  the Word of God came to my heart concerning those who put their hands to the plow looking back….we refused to look back.  we figured that even if we had to wait for a few days for a cheaper apartment or had to live in “the bush” God would provide.  another side note-when i first arrived into the housing office there was another student checking in so i had to wait for him.  i could hear all that was being said and i praise God that i was able to.  the student was asking about his rent and was wondering why it hadn’t been pro-rated for the 5th instead of the 1st.  she told him that he would receive credit for that amount and would be reimbursed when he moved out.  praise God.  my heart clung to Christ and the words out of my mouth to the lady at housing when my turn came was, “i think i am moving in today!”  she laughed and said, “you think you are moving in today?”  “yes!  the Lord has come before me and taken care of it all.  how much do i owe in order to move my family in?”  she told me of our need for $300 for our deposit plus our pro-rated amount for the rent.  i was already praising God in my heart for she said the word, “pro-rated rent”.  she calculated the amount and the total came out to be $810.39.  joy, excitement and praise overflowed me almost to tears….i ran out to natalie, laughing and skipping.  i told her the amount.  she began crying, praising God and overflowed with joy we both worshipped Him in the parking lot.  we had $811. to our name at this point.  He gave us .61 cents more than we needed.  God is awesome.  He didn’t stop there.  by the end of the day the Lord showered down on us $400 in cash through His people as He provided with us what we needed for our power and insurance for the week.  He didn’t stop there.  a day or so later…we went to pay our power deposit of $200 and yet He went before us and cut our deposit amount in half.  my first bill for summer classes arrived on friday….and yet so did the Lord’s provision for at the perfect moment He deposited exactly what we needed to pay for my first class, $669.00, plus the amount for my book, $30.00, plus the money needed for fuel for our first visit back to south carolina to see Cody.  He filled our pantry with so much food that we have had to share some with our neighbors for truly that is why He gave it to us.  a few days after we arrived we heard of a ministry through the providence of God in our very own housing complex: a couple was moving and needed some one to take over the “sunshine seniors” ministry in that complex.  they had not been able to find any body to pick up so they had to call and inform the man in charge of it that it seemed grim.  the ministry the Lord gave us with the “sunshine seniors” entails us going to a local grocery store once a week in order to pick up bread, meat, etc that the store has donated…bringing it back to our townhouse and leaving it out for all the families around us.  God has provided us with daily bread as well as using us to be a channel to others through handing out daily bread.  praise God.  since then so much has happened that there is not enough time to cover it all right now.  we both, by grace have been given part-time jobs.  (natalie’s job is a bright blessing and gift in more ways than one)…all we can say is trust in Christ alone.  look to Him alone and praise Him alone.  He knows all of our needs.  He knows all of our desires.  He knows what is best.  He alone places it into the hearts of His people what we need when we need it.  i am not saying not to ask for help…but what i am saying is that ask God and He will help.  take all your cares and pour them out on God and then wait.  be anxious for nothing.  seek Him first and He will provide all that you need.  strive to taste the honey of His Word.  strive to know Him intimately.  strive to delight in Him and pray to desire Him.  take your eyes off of man and the world and lift your eyes to heaven for He tells us that as our Father He will provide and then He uses the birds and the grass to remind us of His faithfulness.  give it all to Christ.  go to Him.  be content in Him.  proclaim His excellencies.  strive to trust in Him alone….don’t allow the world or man or anyone or anything else to distract you from Him.  read the histories of our brothers and sisters who have gone before us…men such as John Warburton or David Brainerd and George Mueller.  strive to be entirely dependent on Christ.  a couple we met some months ago, missionaries from india, told us once, “we don’t trust the american church to provide for us.  we trust in Christ to provide for us through His church exactly when we NEED what we NEED!”  what an amazing Truth!  strive to taste it.  pray for it without ceasing.  cling to Christ and see the glory of God.  truly we are all living in the abundant life He has promised…may He give us the eyes to see it, the ears to hear it and the heart to believe.  live by faith and not by sight.