Don't Force It!
Huh? Don't force what? Well...God's Daily Plan.
Lately, God has been showing me how to recognize the signs that I'm taking His overall direction and trying to supply my details for how to accomplish it. It's a bad habit of mine that relates to my personality. I can see the big picture and get excited about God's direction and leading, but I'm also very analytical and I really enjoy solving problems and drawing conclusions. So, I take God's big picture, tackle the perceived "obstacles" analytically and apply my own solutions.
The problem is that God would really rather we do things His way. In the Old Testament, the Israelites had a promise that God was taking them from Egypt to the Promised Land. They had to believe that vision to leave Egypt. That was the big picture and required a certain kind of faith. There's another kind of faith as well. That's faith to get up each day, check to see if the cloud over the tabernacle is still there, and gather manna...just enough for today...trusting God to provide it tomorrow too. That's trusting God in the little details as well as the big picture.
I've been learning that my tendency is to see the "Promised Land" and just start figuring out how to get there on my own instead of letting God lead in the details as well. When I try to do it on my own, I'm forcing it...and it doesn't work. Yes, it seems that there is risk in this approach that God desires, but I'm learning that there is peace as well...because He is faithful!
On to prayer...
This month's prayer topics:
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Health: All of our kids have had or are having colds right now. I've had one and both Angela and I have felt run down. Angela has also had several "headache days". Some of this is undoubtedly extra stress of being in transition and in a new culture. There are others in the language school too however, including the school director and one of the school teachers, who have been battling health problems. Please pray for the physical strength of our family and the other student families and staff.
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School/Language (Angela): Angela has to give a devotional talk in French this week. Pray that she would be able to hear what God is saying to her heart and that she would be able to articulate it in French.
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School/Language (David): I'm enjoying my class but having quite mixed results out the real world (like talking to mechanics to get our car fixed!). I feel like God is using real-world language situations to teach me humility. In addition to learning French, pray that these times would work humility in me.
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School/Language (Rachel): Rachel has been "under-challenged" in school so far as she's with other non-French speakers and she's a bit ahead of them in learning French. Beginning this week she will start to attend a couple of "normal" classes in school. Pray for her as she's put into increasingly challenging language situations.
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School/Language (Noah): Noah's favorite subject is: "Play"! Ok, no surprise there. He's making his transition in his own way but pray for him to see the joy in learning...French particularly. Pray also that he'd begin to interact more easily with the other kids (English-speaking) at the language school. He's a bit of a loaner...which is fine, but we'd like to see him develop some healthy friendships.
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School/Language (Olivia): Compared to the rest of us, Olivia is our extrovert. She's enjoying school and loves to learn. She has a pretty strict "old school" teacher though. They can't slouch at their desks, the teacher yells, etc. So, pray for resilience in her as she goes to school each day.
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Church: We need wisdom about what church to attend. We realize that our church situation here will be different from the US or UK. Also, Angela and I see aspects of this quite differently. Our church involvement may be our primary contact with non-English speakers outside of class, so pray that we come into agreement on this.
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Car: We're trying to register our British car here in France as that appearspossible and probably is the cheapest transportation solution for us. Pray that we can navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth to achieve this.
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Thank You and God Bless!
David