Where God Provides, He is Guiding...

     I'm sure most of you have heard the saying, "Where God guides, God provides." We don't see the exact words in Scripture, but we do see their truth ring out in many, many passages. For instance, God guided the people of Israel out of Egypt and back to their homeland. He provided a way of escape through the Red Sea. He gave them shade and direction as the pillar of cloud, and light and warmth as the pillar of fire. He fed them, He quenched their thirst. The list goes on and on. And this is repeated throughout the Bible. God has always chosen to guide people to their destination for His glory, and He provides all that they need along the way.

     Sometimes, we don't see God guiding as well as we'd like. Why? Not because God isn't guiding, but because He is building our faith in Him. It is at these times that we need to switch the saying around. You might be thinking, "Jason, you can't do that. If you reverse the statement it won't mean the same thing." I beg to differ...and I can show you why through some basic mathematics. Let's say that we have 2 variables, A and B. If we say A = 5, and we say that B = 5, then we can also say that A = B. In the same way, we could also say that B = A. Because both variables are equal to 5, we can set them equal to each other, and it doesn't matter which ones comes first.

     If you're confused about variables, and thinking that you don't use mathematical basics like "variables" everyday...when was the last time you measured something? Or you asked the distance from one place to another? Those are all variables. When someone asks you for the length and width of your countertop piece at Home Depot, they are actually giving you two variables to solve for. You simply put in the length and width you measured at home. Wow...I dedicated a whole paragraph to a tangent. Back to our original statement...

     If "God guides" where "God provides", then we can also say that "God provides" where "God guides." They are both present in either situation, we just notice one before the other. Sometimes, we feel God calling us to do something or to go somewhere. We then see God provide us with the means to do or go as He has called us to. Other times, we see God provide something and we have no idea what it's for. We then see God call us to use that provision to do or go as He calls.

     In my own life, I see the first instance the most. God called me to go to Brasil on a missions trip during my senior year of high school, I then watched as He provided the funds to do so. God called me to learn more about Him through a Bible college. He provided Cornerstone: School Of Ministry at my church. God called me to minister to Children. He brought Child Evangelism Fellowship into my life so I could do just that.

     Recently, however, I've seen the opposite. God has provided some really amazing things in the past 3 weeks. I don't see Him guiding me in what to do with them, but at the same time, I do. Everything that He has provided in the last 3 weeks is guiding me into something that I can't even begin to explain. And yet, if I had never thought to flip the statement around, I would think that all of this was merely my own doing and that it wasn't from Him. Oh how wrong I would be to think that!!!

     As some of you might have seen on my recent facebook status, three years ago I was at a Bible study where went over Proverbs 3:5-6. Here's the passage so you can see for yourself: 

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.

     At the time I wondered, "I wonder what it means when it says God will direct my paths?" Now I see that God has been directing them this whole time. Starting almost exactly 3 years ago, I started to look at life differently. I began to see things through God's eyes. I started seeking His face in order to know what to do. And now I can see what that has changed in my life. I looked up the word used here for "direct." The word is yashur (yaw-sure) It means to make straight, right, pleasant or prosperous. So, in my mind, the verses become something like this:

Trust in God with everything you have

Rely on His knowledge

Do everything with His permission

And He will make your life better than you ever dreamed.

     Yeah...that pretty much sums it all up. I know where God is guiding me, because I can see where He is providing for me. (And yes...that means I'm really, really sure about the identity of the "gift". Like...98% sure...and no, I'm not telling you what it is.) I will continue to search out God's will for me, not because of the awesome benefits that it brings, although they are really awesome :), but because a life with Him is so much better than anything I could ever do on my own. Why would I ever want to go back to doing things my way?

Godspeed!
-Jason

Turned Around (Or: A Beautiful Letdown)

     As some of you readers may know, this year's 5 Day Club material from Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) carries the theme "Turned Around". All of the stories relate to that theme and show the child how their life can be turned around by the power of God. And, although my life wasn't turned around from a life without Christ to one with Him, it was still turned around by the power of God. For those of you wishing I wasn't as vague, your wish is granted...at least in part. I won't be AS vague in this post, but there are some things that must still remain shrouded outside the light of this blog.

     I think that most of this starts back in January of 2009. It was then that I was finishing up my Senior year of high-school. Being home-schooled, my transcripts for any college applications had to be created by myself and my mom based on what I had learned. From a previous trip up north, I had my sights set on Multnomah University. And I easily would have enjoyed a great educational experience there, but finances prevented me from doing so. In order to go, I would need a key scholarship, one that I easily met the requirements for. So I prayed about it: If God wanted me at MU, then I'd get the scholarship, if He wanted me to enroll in my church's Bible college, then I wouldn't get the scholarship. Not too long after that, I received my "letter of apology" from MU saying that I hadn't been chosen to receive the scholarship. So...I went to Calvary Corvallis' Cornerstone: School of Ministry (CSOM).

     It was there that God showed me, through a potential relationship, that I needed to be seeking Him more. Of course, I didn't see that at the time, but I see it now. I hadn't really sought God's will for my life consistently before then, but looking back I can see how that's changed. I kept seeking God, and saw Him show me things that seemed like the relationship might actually be His will...but what He was actually doing was building my faith and trust in Him. If you have been following this blog for awhile, you can probably guess where this is headed...

     After 18 months of waiting and watching for God to give me the signal to talk to the young lady I had in mind, the signal finally came. So I talked to her. And the answer was...no. The strange thing is, I wasn't as torn up as you might think. In fact, I wasn't really torn up at all, just wondering what God was doing. I guess I had come to rely on Him so much that, regardless of the answer, I knew that whatever happened would be what God wanted to happen. Somehow I knew that it was God behind it, yet it wasn't a conscious knowledge. It took some more waiting and searching for my mind to catch up with my soul and understand that God had something else in mind.

     That was May 31st, this year. It took a few days for me to realize God might have a different plan in mind. And that's when staff training for Christian Youth In Action (CYIA) came around. It was there that I realized that being staff with CEF wasn't actually as hard as I thought it would be. Almost like I had been made to work in CEF. Don't know why I didn't see that sooner. Then, 2 weeks back, we had the full week of CYIA, and after all of my staff duties there, I can seriously see working with CEF as where God has called me for the indefinite future.

     Which brings us to this week, the inspiration for the title of this post. Like I said in my last post (Scroll down and read it if you haven't yet) God answered a key prayer over the week of CYIA, and I had another one lined up for Him to answer. He answered that prayer with a yes as well. So I gave Him another prayer to answer...and on Wednesday (June 29th) He answered it too with a yes. So needless to say, after three prayers all answered with a yes in a 2 week period, I'm rather excited. But back to the title of this post...

     In a way, my life has been turned around. What was a letdown has become a beautiful letdown. So it went from being negative to being positive. A definite case of something being turned around. As Switchfoot put it in a song once:

It was a beautiful let down,

When you found me here,

Yeah for once in a rare blue moon

I see everything clear.

     As for the identity of that gift I keep talking about, the one behind the stained glass door, I might just know what it is this time. And while I remain happily optimistic that I really do know what it is, if I happen to be wrong, I know that its for the best. As I recently saw on Facebook: It's funny how I come up with my own plan of how I want my life to be and then God shows me some of His and I think "why did I ever think mine was good?" :) That's definitely how I feel right now. And no, I'm not telling you what I think is behind the door. I'm saving it so that I can shock you all later on.