Friday, October 19, 2007

Today’s Power Minute:

NOT WITHOUT A STRUGGLE

“But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” Ruth 1:16-17

There are times when we have to bite the bullet, draw a line in the sand and stand our ground to attain that which we don’t know and can’t see. It is in that place where you find yourself incapable of tolerating the status quo, yet you are not quite sure what the next step should be or if you should even be taking a step!!!

It’s at that crossroad where you must decide to ride or die. You don’t know what is over the horizon, but you surely cannot remain in the shadow of the sunset!!!

I understand that you may be facing a struggle. And that’s ok—a caterpillar must first endure the struggle of breaking out of the cocoon in order to realize her destiny as a butterfly. What struggles are you facing that seem impossible to endure? Go back and read the story of Ruth. She lost everything, yet she knew she could not turn back. She had to go forward with God. He is well able to turn your mourning into dancing!!! (Psalm 30:11).

Trust in His power and don’t fear the struggle. You may have to shed a tear during the night, but you will certainly find joy in the morning light.

Keep looking up!!!

Pastor KT

As I was reading this, I really felt the Lord speaking to me about leaving my job! “Biting the bullet”, “you find yourself incapable of tolerating the status quo”, “It’s at that crossroad where you must decide to ride or die”, “don’t fear the struggle” … All these things convicted me that I should be leaving my job… Oh Lord, you know how much I want to!!!

I also was doing a Bible study with Pastor KT (the Power Minute author) and in the study there was a question we needed to answer and that was “What is God asking you to prepare for?”. And during one of my morning walks and prayer times, I was pondering this question and I felt like God was telling me to “Prepare to depart”! In my heart I knew he meant my job… to prepare to leave my job. So, I have been doing just that! Getting things ready at work to hand over to someone else when God says “Go”.

I met with another friend for lunch today and shared with her a portion of where we are and how much I feel the call to go into full time ministry but that I am concerned about the money and benefits.

Tom called me today to tell me that we got a check in the mail from Bank of America, hand addressed to us for $2,460.00...!! With no remittance stub explaining what it was for just, "overpayment" listed in the memo section. Bank of America financed my car so all we could figure was that they sold my car in auction and this was what was left after they paid what was owed and all of the fees!! Who has ever heard of that!? Getting a check from the bank after your car has been repossessed?? What?? And, our next payment on Tom’s car (after SK paid off part of it) was due on November 1st. Guess how much the payoff was for Tom's car?? $2,298.00...!! So, we had a little over a hundred left over to take care of some maintenance that was needed on Tom's car... OMGoodness!! Only God!!

BY bought Tom and I tickets to the Sonic Flood concert so when we showed up he grabbed us and said he had a special “task” for us to do. He took us back to pray for the band before they performed which was a really cool experience. The rest of the evening went down hill from there… I was tired, grumpy and once again PMSing (I feel like I spend more time PMSing than not lately!), and I allowed Tom to piss me off so I was not in the best of moods for the rest of the night and went straight to bed when I got home because I couldn’t stand myself!! Poor Tom.