Building upon a foundation...

This is Heath, I am chiming in on the September Blog-a-thon that Jill has embarked on.

Forgive the long post, but there is a lot on my heart... 

Jeff Manion, Pastor of Ada Bible Church and author of The Land Between, tells of a place in the aforementioned book that none of us like to be.  However, it is a place that we can be certain that we will be at many times in life (See John 16:33).  It is a place where hope, dreams, careers and marriages go to die.  You guessed it, he refers to it as "The Land Between."  He refers to it as being "fertile land" for complaint, frustration and emotional breakdown.

A little over five years ago, we were at the end of our rope.  Near destruction and lacking much hope.  At odds over most everything and without a shared solid rock to stand upon.  In one of those sobering moments that you don't soon forget, we agreed that if there was a hope for us, it would start with a shared spiritual foundation in our marriage.  In a conversation with Jill's chiropractor, that was somewhat unexpected, we got the ticket (quite literally... it was an invite tool to check out her church) that we needed to bring hope and a common ground to our lives and our marriage.  God put Jill exactly where He wanted her to be to reach us and bring us back into a redeemed relationship with himself. 

Through our willingness to check it out (to be honest I drug my feet due to my perception that it would be beyond my comfort zone), we learned what it meant to have a PERSONAL relationship with Christ and how the Bible applied to our lives and marriage.  And we began to trust God in subtle ways at first.  And He blessed us through every step of trust we took. 

We began to have productive conversations about our marriage and we BOTH (yes... I was the one that didn't take things seriously when problems reared their ugly heads) engaged in the healing of our marriage.  It took professional counseling, hard and tearful conversations, redefining our priorities and most importantly, submitting to Christ to place Him at the center of our marriage. 

As our marital problems subsided, God began to prompt us to trust us with other things.  Some little, some big.  He put it on our heart to sell our home and attack our credit card debt that had grown to a ridiculous amount.  We were able to sell in only five months (right before the market totally crashed) and find a place to rent that freed up a significant amount of cash in our budget.  We also got serious about Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace approach to finances.  For a year and a half we made solid progress towards our debt. 

Then God did something... He called me into ministry... For those of you that are unaware, ministry doesn't pay like banking does.  We wrestled hard with this calling and questioned how it was that we would finish paying off the remaining large amount we owed in credit card debt, if I was taking home less.  We tried to make the numbers work and they didn't make sense, but God made it evidently clear that we were to be obedient in this calling and we submitted to His call.

Through that step of obedience, we were able to get closer to our goal by making some bold moves driven by a desire to be able to honor God fully with our financial lives.  Completion of the goal was within a year... and then God allowed us to be tested some more.  It came through the change of Jill being home and no longer working. We watched as overnight our goal went from being within one year of striking distance to being years out.  Have you ever ran full speed into a brick wall?  That is about what it felt like (or so I would guess).  Ultimately, we have had to learn to trust that God wants to teach us more through this unexpected twist of events.

Needless to say, it isn't easy right now... scratch that... it's a big understatement... it is BITTERLY HARD right now.  There is a tension in the air that is unbearable at times.  There are words that come too quickly and too sharply.  As a result there is heartache and confusion.

However, through our obedience to God's promptings, we have been able to build a trust in God through the little things.  In Jeff's aforementioned book, he explains the importance of this training:

"During these seasons of relative tranquility, we do not necessarily experience growth of a radical, sweeping, transformational variety - the type of dynamic change from which we emerge as radically different people.  That kind of growth tends to happen under pressure... 

Incremental growth keeps us moving in a forward direction.  We do not plateau for long.  Either we are moving forward or we are drifting backward... 

Daily obedience establishes patterns in the heart that increase the possibility of our responding in trust and cooperating with God's transformational work when we are faced with a season of severe trial."

It is through the training in trust that we embraced during a brighter time in life that gives us what it takes to get through this.  From our obedient work, we have been able to see God through all of it.  It has come through a variety of ways...

an anonymous gift...

a convicting story of a "Land Between" that is much more dismal than ours...

an unexpected glimpse of the hope and joy that comes only from the faith of a child...

from the thoughtfulness of our small group.

And in those moments, we know...

everything will be okay... 

God is with us...

that God is still building our trust for Him within us...

and that He will use this season for His good and perfect will.

God has blessed our obedience when life was "normal" to equip us with a trust in Him that will carry us through this.  He has blessed the hard work we have poured into our marriage to allow us to snap out of the difficult moments I eluded to above more quickly.  We remember more readily that we have resolved to be in this TOGETHER... through it all... whatever it is that God will allow us to experience in this life and in our marriage.  He has prepared us to live in "The Land Between."  In this dangerous land, I am confident that we will come through it radically transformed spiritually and with another chapter of hardship in our lives through which we can see God's goodness. 

As Jeff says:

"The Land Between is fertile ground for transformational growth.

But be warned: the Land Between is also the place where faith goes to die... We get to decide."

That brings me to a few questions:

If you are in a place where life seems to be humming on all 4 cylinders, how are you building your faith and trust in God through the little things?  Will you be ready for the major trial that is coming (it is WHEN, not IF)?

If you are in the "Land Between", can you look back and see how God has been present in the small trials?  Do you have the hours logged in to His "gym" to have the foundation of trust that you can build upon to radically transform you?

Perhaps you are in the Land Between right now and not only have you not trained yourself to trust in God, but you don't even have a relationship with Him.  There is hope, as Jeff illustrates:

"If you find you have taken a detour (an analogy used by Jeff to illustrate the Land Between) and do not have a spiritual foundation or a history with God, you do not have to be handicapped.  God can build that foundation into your life even in the Land Between.  Open your heart to him.  Be honest with him.  Whatever you do, keep talking.  He is with you.  He sees you.  And his desire is to work transformational growth into your life."

-YOU decide.

God Bless.