Good (Very Early) Morning,
It is 3:30 am, one of those mornings I lost the battle to fall back to sleep. Sleep is overrated anyway right? Just kidding around, but I can make good use of the time. I so often find it is a good time to journal & spend time with God. It is so peaceful & quiet & my mind is clear of daily activities that lay ahead.
One thing that is almost always on my mind is our trip to Zambia June 15th. Sometime recently I have taken control of this journey & need to give the control back to God. The lines of my roles and responsibilities & what I need to turn over to Him are getting blurred. I take control & turn over, take control & turn over on & on. It is a constant battle isn't it?
When I started this awesome, exciting, wonderful opportunity, scary, anxiety based, faith stretching journey my 1st mountain was raising $4500. In this economy, I thought it might as well of been a million dollars! How are we going to do this? Forget the we, how am I going to do this? Ask people for money?! Oh no, I can not ask people for money. After finding out I could not get the time off of work I said to myself oh, I guess I thought I heard God's call, but I must be mistaken. About a week of going back & forth: maybe God did call me, no, He wouldn't ask me to do this at this time. You know how that is right? You go back and forth with your decision and don't find inner peace again until you make the right decision. After about a week of no peace and no sleep I said, "Okay Lord I will be your vessel."
During this time our small group was studying John Ortberg's When The Game Is Over It All Goes Back In The BOX. In one of the chapters John talks about God calling us: he says, "You may have noticed that very rarely in the Bible does God bother to interrupt someone's life and ask him or her to do an easy task. Hebrews 11, is devoted to a series of encounters where God asks people to embrace high-risk assignments." He goes on to say, "How high a value would you say God places on making sure people who follow him lead comfortable lives? It seems that God wants to use us, wants to grow us up, wants us to be strong and wise and courageous. He doesn't appear to be terribly interested in making sure we're comfortable. He would not make a good flight attendant." LOL.
Now, you might ask, "What happened to your mountain?" Well, I can tell you with tears of joy there is no mountain for God has removed it. I just checked my account and I have a credit of $6.34. :)
Sincerely,
Joyce Murphy
Zambia Missions Team Member 2012
