A re-post on Providence… This blogger is looking forward to More and enjoying what He is already Providing…
The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the finite mind. I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know them is the most satisfying thing in all the world.
~Selma Ottiliana Lovisa Lagerlöf (1858-1940)
Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou must go with this people unto the land which the Lord hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.
~ Deuteronomy 31:6-8
It has been, beloved one of the richest moments of this blogger’s life.
What an amazing 3 weeks!!!!
Here are but a few of the highlights…
> Left a job in Arizona
> Said goodbye to a bunch of friends and family in AZ
> Packed up and moved out of my residence in AZ
> Took 6 flights with over 10,000 air miles
> Took 2, 6+ hour bus rides
> Rode in countless taxis
> Visited 4 countries (and three places in the Philippines)
> Did business at the US embassy in Manila
> Got married to a wonderful woman 🙂 (Please welcome Melinda Doulos to the family!)
> Had a wonderful honeymoon with the same WONDERFUL woman mentioned above 🙂 in Baguio City in Northern Luzon.
> Made ministry contacts in Bacolod City
> Endured an embarrassing hack of my Facebook account.
> Began re-connecting with friends and family back in the US.
> Landed in a spiritually oppressive, heavily muslim environment.
> Moved into an apartment in Jakarta, Indonesia
> Spent a day shopping for a kitchen and groceries (adventure!)
> Had many ventures to take care of necessary business
> Battled a credit card mess-up and card suspension overseas
> Reconnected phone and internet, etc. in the 3rd world.
> Got plugged in to a cool church here in Jakarta (Wesley Methodist Church)
> Met my new son (please welcome Samuel Doulos to the family!), Sammy is 4, and is a beautiful Indonesian who was given up for adoption
> Started a new job teaching 7th grade English at Springfield International School
> Began developing lesson plans on a new international curriculum
WOW!!! THIS HAS BEEN AN AWESOME TIME!!!!! VERY EXCITING, GLORIOUS, WONDERFUL!!! THE BEST!!!!!
and… i am a little tired. and a little worn out.
i am seeing that it is vital to stay weak. If i (or any of us) had any sense that i (we) could handle this kind of load on my (our) own, i (we) would be crushed. Only God can drive our lives successfully… We will crash without Him.
But, in staying weak, there is this tremendous opportunity to allow for Providence to do His thing. When we simply and purposefully get out of the driver’s seat of our lives – He has the opportunity to really show up and do some really cool things.
Some of the Provision that we see is visible (logistical, economic, circumstantial, etc.) and some – more importantly – is battle wrought for us beyond realms we can see with our natural eyes.
My beloved spouse and i watched some of the natural and supernatural cross over during a leg of our new journey together. We were married in Bacolod City in the Philippines on 30 June and left a few days later for Baguio City, north of Manila, on the larger island of Luzon. We started the day early with more luggage than we could fit into our luggage budget.
And then appeared an angel… This cherub smiled and she seemed to just figure out a way to help us avoid a significant amount of overage charges… Then this gate agent literally disappeared from behind the counter and left us with just our completed boarding paperwork. It was interesting to note that the same agent was on the stairs as we boarded the Airbus jet… and even more interesting to note that the same agent was the ground crew on the headsets that navigated the plane out of the gate…
So, then we flew to Manila without incident… upon arriving, we needed to store the same surplus baggage in the airport so as to visit American soil at the embassy for an appointment. And another angel appeared… who seemed to understand that we needed a break on the cost of storing our copious luggage (i was not just on a honeymoon – this writer literally was moving from the US to Indonesia along the way).
We got back to the airport from the embassy. And loaded our luggage into yet another taxi for transport to a bus station where we would board for a 6+ hour trip to Baguio City. Upon arriving at the bus terminal (note: we are in epic-crazy Manila), we check our luggage – and the porter (another angel it seems) loads our luggage in a segregated compartment and locks the door down tight…
So, we travel up into the mountains of Luzon and into the night. The mountain town where we arrived is not a death trap like some towns in this part of the world – but no place here is a place where one goes out at night un-armed. So arrive two more angels. Two armed (literally) guards walked up to us as we got off the bus unannounced and pulled our bags off the bus. They then asked us where we were going… We mentioned that it was a nearby hotel. And these two angels literally just took off carting the luggage that we could never have handled safely on our own that night. They got us into the safety of the hotel – and our bags onto the cart of a bellhop.
We traveled across two islands in the Philippines and almost never had to touch our bags. Are you kidding me?
Nope.
And yeah, the process was repeated all the way to our apartment in Jakarta. There was even a cart available at the apartment lobby when we arrived to help us get everything up to the 5th floor.
Why?
He Loves us. He knows what He wants for us. He will bend space and time to assist people who are simply looking to Him for everything and simply want to do His will.
So, yeah, maybe our lives are not always going to be going this fast and crazy… but can there be any doubt that He is going before us in the spiritual world even when the natural seems normal? Can there be any doubt that He is yet and even now – in all our lives – bending space and time to bring about His glory and our good?
Surely, there can be no doubt!
