What God’s Been Teaching Us

For about a year Jeff and I have been praying almost daily that God would “mold our hearts to be like Jesus, multiply our lives into others, and mobilize laborers for His rescue mission harvest.”  It is especially hard to pray that first part, because God has used a lot of very difficult times to mold our hearts.  But we will not stop praying it, because sometimes we are shown such a clear vision of what God is doing.  Sometimes the beauty of God’s bigger picture is better seen when we feel surrounded by ugliness.

For example, we mentioned last month that our air conditioner has been the source of a lot of trouble.  It was leaking and causing health concerns, so we made the very expensive decision to replace the AC system.  Things got worse as inspections revealed that the installers made mistakes and even created fire and safety hazards to the point that we had to replace the brand new unit with another new unit (through a new company!).  So many days of having people in our home looking at everything, so much paperwork to fill out, so many phone calls, so much time and energy. But God has been using it all for His glory!

A man named Jason from the new AC company was incredibly gracious and helpful, and by the end of our first meeting we had all shared our hearts a little and prayed together. (On another house call in 2008, Jason had been led to the Lord by Cru co-founder Vonette Bright, and his marriage and family were transformed!)  He was a huge blessing to us, but he won’t stop thanking us for praying for and encouraging him!  He and his wife have been having conversations about going deeper with God and now Jeff is discipling him 🙂

Next I got to pray with another Jason in the Philippines (from our credit card company, working to get our refund from the first AC company).  Picking up on a comment I made about my faith, he ended up really pouring his heart out and we prayed and cried together.  I told him how much God loved him and that every minute of frustration over the air conditioner was worth it to be able to encourage and pray with him.  God doesn’t waste a single thing!  Please keep praying!