Worry vs. Faith

I am not normally one to worry. Sometimes, even when I should worry a bit, I don't. I don't worry about my kids, finances, relationships - nothing. Until now. I have also been a person for whom faith comes easily. I do not doubt God, but take him at his word. I have never struggled with a crisis of faith. I know that my easy and big faith is a gift, because many, many people I have talked to struggle with faith, but not me. Until now. The delay in getting our home study report has caused me to sink into a pit of worry. I am worried that we won't get it in time to get it through immigration. I am worried that immigration will take so long that we won't have time to do all the other steps of the adoption before this baby is born. I am worried that I will rush around at the last minute trying to finish, only to have the baby born days before the paperwork is logged in in China. I am worried that we will no longer qualify if that happens, and that we will lose all the money we have spent on it and have to start over when this baby is older. It has become consuming. Jerry and I have talked and talked about it this last week, and I see clearly that I am not trusting God in this. He told us to go forward and He is fully capable of seeing it through, no matter what delays may happen. I know this, but do I believe it? I am not walking in faith on this matter right now.

Have you ever noticed that when God wants to teach us something, he continually puts it in front of our faces until we get it? That happens to me. Little things happened throughout the week to confront me with my lack of patience and lack of faith. Then at church yesterday, the sermon was on Mark 9:14-24. I feel just like this man who knew Jesus could heal his son, but had begun to doubt and cried, "I believe! Help my unbelief!" This is where I am. The message really spoke to me and gave me lots to think about. Jerry and I talked on it for an hour last night and then I spent some time in prayer handing this whole situation over to God.

This morning I woke up feeling so much better and lighter and freer. I pulled out one of my favorite books, Beth Moore's Praying God's Word, and opened up to the section titled "Overcoming Unbelief." Again, she writes in the introduction about the same passage of scripture! Okay, I hear you, God! she also brings up Eph. 1: 18-20, "I pray also that hey eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead." Is getting my paperwork in before the baby comes more difficult than raising someone from the dead? I think not. Well, then, I think God is fully capable of doing that if I believe!

Another verse that spoke to me this morning was Isaiah 26:3-4, "You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in Yahweh, the Lord, is everlasting strength."