"Trust in the lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take." Proverbs 3:5-6

God is always working behind the scenes. Scripture tells us that He goes before us and makes a way...our job is to believe and to wait, trusting that He knows best and is busy weaving together every thread of our lives. In His perfect love, He even takes the threads of our disobedience, and the falleness of  creation and spins and weaves them into a beautiful fabric, somehow working even the most destructive and horrible things to good. I can't begin to fathom how He does it...my most difficult season brought me into a closer relationship with Him...I was strengthened and grew in knowledge of His word...I worshiped Him in my brokenness and came face to face with my Lord. Although gut wrenching at times, I would not trade a moment of my desert walks with Jesus.

Sometimes we are praying for something completely unaware that God already has answered the prayer. I can think of a two examples that pertain directly to our Malawi mission trip. First story belongs to Jenn. Jenn was apprehensive about fund raising for the trip. I totally understand as four thousand dollars is a lot of money. Although raising it still seems impossible, I know in whom I believe, and for God four thousand dollars is certainly not a challenge. I have learned to sit back and wait to see how I am delivered from things which "Seem" impossible. Jenn was struggling nonetheless, and it was evident that she was worried. As her mentor I tried assuring her many times in many different ways that when God calls us to go for Him, He also provides the way to go. I reminded her of other times in her life when God had come through and suggested that she concentrate on those times...but as she is human, she still had moments of worry. Knowing this, God had prompted a friend of hers to make a donation to the Pure Mission website. At the very moment that we stood outside in a parking lot after a church event...(me quoting scriptures about God's provision and assuring her that He was making a way, that He always goes ahead of us)...the money was sitting in her account. When she received the email she dared to hope that the amount wasn't a typo...her friend had donated two thousand dollars! (That is half of the trip cost!).

I share Jenn's story because it can be quite a far distance between what we think in our own minds, and what God tells us is true in His word. We can have two thousand dollars sitting in our account and be worrying about how we are going to collect our mission trip money. The lesson here is we must believe sometimes before we see...the answer is on it's way but often it takes longer than we would like.

"Don't be afraid Daniel. Since the first day you began to pray for understanding and to humble yourself before God, your request has been heard in heaven. I have come to answer your prayer. But for twenty one days the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia blocked my way. Then Michael, one of the archangels, came to help me, and I left him there with the spirit of the kingdom of Persia." - Daniel 10:12-13

Basically, Daniel prayed. God heard it in heaven. God sent and angel with the answer to his prayer. The angel was intercepted by a demon and they battled. During these three weeks Daniel continued to pray. The prayer already had an answer, but because of spiritual warfare, it took three weeks to come. Sometimes the answer takes longer than others. Evidently there are things happening in the heavens that we cannot see nor understand. They are however happening and we need to be reminded to not be afraid...to wait with faith...to trust God.

The second story is about Amy. Amy is on my Malawi team. Each meeting Amy shows up excited and ready to be part of the team. The only difference for Amy is that Amy lives in Texas. Amy attends the meetings via skype and telephone. Although she technically has been at each meeting, she was beginning to feel disconnected from the group. Every time we turned pages in our notebooks it sounded to her like a thunderous roll of  chaos and static on the line. When we talked about our fears and our concerns around the table, we passed Amy (she was on a cell phone) around the room so that she could hear, but every time someone laughed it drowned out what others were saying. Amy was feeling out of sync with the team.

I had no idea how Amy was feeling, but God did. Amy had been praying for Him to make a way for her, to help her to feel more connected. After our meeting a strong feeling in my heart tugged at my attention like a toddler wanting something from his mother...it was incessant and would not stop. I walked around the table to Al (Amy is his mother) and found myself asking him how I could be praying for her. As he told me a bit about her I offered to give him my phone number so that she and I could talk. Al gave me his mother's number and I told him that I would be calling her. God continued to have Amy on my heart. I began praying for her regularly. I began to feel like I knew her.

The morning came when I was free to talk on the phone for awhile and I called Amy. She answered and I explained who I was and why I was calling. That moment Amy shared how she had been praying for this, and how she had felt after our meeting (right when God put her on my heart). We became fast friends. We talked at length and it became clear that we were very much alike. We shared a bit of our journey with each other and exchanged skype addresses and email addresses and agreed to keep in touch every few days. God had answered Amy's prayer as soon as she had offered it...it was a few days before I called her, but the call was coming.

Seeing behind the scenes like this, we get an awesome glimpse of how God is working. When we don't get an answer to prayer right away, there may be an answer waiting, there may be spiritual warfare occurring, or there may just be a phone call about to come any day...What I do know is that there is an answer on its way...our job is to wait and believe.