"Trusting God"

"Trusting God". That is the title of the book I'm reading right now for the RUF study program. It's by Jerry Bridges, and it's title sums up just what I'm learning this week. I think it's no coincidence that this is the book for this month. At the time of my last post, I was reading a chapter about how God is sovereign even in the hard times, and how we are normally not comfortable with that, but how he uses them to his ends, despite our mistrust. "I'm not really going through any adversity right now" was the though running through my head.

Maybe an hour later, I was on the way to a small group from my church, that had graciously invited me to dinner, and then to share about my internship with them. One mile away from their house, my awesome 2003 Taurus (the very one with half my dorm room stuffed into the trunk), with only 65,000 miles under it's belt, refused to move another inch. It just plain stopped. Pressing my foot on the gas did no good, other than rev the engine. I was able to coast off to the side of the road, and sort of pull off the main road onto a neighborhood road. I was baffled...why would my car, which has been incredibly faithful in the past, and has given me no warning of anything amiss, just fail? I'm not sure, but they told us at Orientation that every intern would have car problems. I just didn't believe that I fell into the category of "every intern".

Now, this is not exactly a huge life crisis that is causing me incredible pain and suffering. Inconvenient? yes. Expensive? absolutely. But I think maybe Satan wants it to be discouraging, and at the same time, God had it all worked out so beautifully, that it is impossible to be discouraged, and instead, I find myself marveling at his provision. I could go on and on, but let me simply show you a few of the things I'm amazed at:

-I've been driving a lot this past month, through Atlanta, through no-where's-ville. And the place my car broke down was in the safest neighborhood possible, a mile away from excellent help, in a city that I know pretty well, and where I know plenty of people.

-The man who crossed the road to help me push my car a little further to safety saw the RUF sticker on my back window.
"Do you go to RUF?"
"Well, yes, actually, I'm just beginning work for them as an Intern."
"Really? Well, do you know [this other guy]?"
"Wow, yeah, he's gonna be the intern at Samford next year (where I just graduated from) and I just met him at Orientation"
"Well, he was just at my house a couple days ago"
A short conversation, but in that moment, so encouraging, and such a picture that God was with me right then.

-The small group, who immediately sent people to my assistence (I didn't even know everyone there), and drove me back to where I was staying that night. (incidentally, and definately not coincidentally, the family who drove me back lives just down the road that I needed to be dropped off on)

-my good friend Josh who "just happened" to have a flexible schedule on Monday and was able to help me get the car towed, and take me to the Ford dealership, and who waited very patiently with me for the three hours all of that took

-my dear, sweet friend Anna, who immediately said it was okay for me to stay with them until my car was fixed, and who came and picked me up to take me back to her amazing family (who has been treating me like royalty)

-the fact that I was frustrated not to have any appointments scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, because I felt like my trip to Birmingham would be more or less a failure. But it turns out, I had talked to everyone I had needed to on Sunday at church & small group, and I wouldn't have been able to make it to any appointments after all.

So you see, I could go on and on, and talk about the many ways God has been providing for me in this relatively minute inconvenience. It really is overwhelming. And humbling. I really think this is a lesson I need to learn before moving to Davidson to start ministry there. This time, I've been able to see God in every detail of my car breaking down; it's easy to trust here. Next time, it might not be that way. But I do pray that I'll trust his presence regardless of how clearly I see it.

introduction

So, I'm terrible at blogging, and I know this, and you will quickly discover this to be a fact as well, if you didn't know already. But I want to have an outlet to keep people updated about my internship with RUF. I've been inspired by the myriads of bloggers out there, whose blogs I love to read, because I find them insightful, or encouraging, or inspiring. This will probably be none of those. They also tend to be written by people who are good and creative writers. I am not. Consider yourself warned.

Panera Bread on highway 31 in Birmingham, AL: It is a quiet Sunday afternoon: melancholy, but peaceful. This summer has been different, and will only get harder before it gets easier. I am a nomad for two and a half months, living out of the trunk of my taurus. Why? you might ask. Come early August, I hope to move to Davidson College, but currently I am fundraising. This scares me to death. Think about it...$31,804 to raise in order to pursue the first year of a job I feel like God is calling me to do. But we live in a society where it is not kosher to talk about money, and certainly not okay to ask people for money. And on top of that, the fact that I don't particularly like to recieve any gifts. It makes me feel uncomfortable. At RUF Orientation, John Stone explained something: half the reason that we're raising money for this internship, is so that we can understand what it is like to recieve grace. If I cannot accept the unmerrited generosity of others wanting to be a part of this ministry, how can I expect to accept the unmerrited grace of Jesus Christ that I am supposed to be ministring out of? This has provided me with a lot of food for thought, and caused me to examine myself some. Support raising is a humbling process, and I need that.

Tonight I'm going to talk with a small group about my ministry at RUF-Davidson, and ask them to support me. I'm nervous. Will this actually help? Will they be persuaded that my ministry is good enough that they want to be a part of it? Will I present myself eloquently, and make easy conversation with these people as we fellowship? These are the thoughts racing through my mind. And yet, deep down, I know that God is in control, and I long to trust that I am entirely unimportant, merely a bruised reed that God has chosen out of his great mercy to use for his purposes. Without this truth, tonight, and my two years at Davidson are doomed to failure. Oh that I would learn to trust!