Yesterday morning, I was so excited about a direction God had shown me during my devotional reading and prayer time that I couldn't wait to get started on it. There were multiple phases of our new business model that I could see becoming really productive for both our success and for strengthening marriages. There were solutions to financial challenges within it. There were answers for our critics regarding why we take certain photographs. It held so many answers to marketing, budgeting, spiritual and family questions that I could barely contain myself. I wanted to jump right up and wake Crystal up so I could explain it to her.

Note this; however, at the end of that study, there was one last piece in the devotional where I felt God wanted me to share some of our current problems & prayers with our children (based on Deuteronomy 4:9). Don't get me wrong, I was not aiming to overwhelm them with every little detail, but the biggest headache and worry on my head, for some reason, needed to be shared with my children. That was the part of my study that I really skimmed over. God had blessed me with the promise that He would fulfill all our needs and that we could move forward with His assurance. He had given me insight on how to make the tactical decisions that would bring more glory to His name and expand His kingdom through our work. These were huge insights! The talk with the kids and prayer with them about our problems could wait until later, after I got working to implement this new understanding.

Now I couldn't, physically, get up without waking up Crystal so she got what I would call a quick verbal blast from me of the revelation. Brief, not too detailed, but definitely the energized version because I could not hold it in. I was excited to see God's plan be put in place and to see how it would start playing out. I would get to the part about the kids after I showered and got my next blog entry posted. (Some scriptures I had read a couple of days ago needed to be made available to a friend in need, so obviously, that needed to be done before going to talk and pray with the kids.) And so it went, the next thing, and the next thing kept building up a delay factor until it was the end of the day and I was dead asleep on the couch at 1:00 AM the next morning. Looking back, I didn't get one fourth of those "new revelations" completed. Most importantly, I never spoke to the kids about the problems or the prayers.

With all the issues going on, my heart was heavier with frustration and worry than it had been all week. It didn't make sense. Where was the energy and eagerness that I felt to do God's will yesterday? It went away when I let every little distraction (no matter how important I, personally, thought it was) get in the way with what God had directed me to do. He gave me a vision so I could be fruitful but He also gave me an instruction so I would prove faithful and obedient. My obedience was tied to my children's future and my own blessing.

Now let me bring in the reality of God's grace and mercy. I woke up this morning, read my bible study material and then, with a heavy heart, began to pray with Crystal. It was a painful request to God to say I didn't know anything and that I needed Him to fulfill His promise so I could maintain my walk-in-faith. I needed a fresh, new awareness that He was with me. Suddenly, Crystal informed me that we had less than a two hour window on a tax matter that was long overdue. It was overwhelming to us because taxes are not my forte nor Crystal's. We had missed being obedient regarding something very vital and it was coming back to haunt us.

Even my devotional reading was direct to the point... It actually read from Mark 12:1-34. That was a big scare. I read it before I knew that we had a two hour deadline so there was no mistaking God's hand in this. We then received a call from the tax office. We called our new accountant. We dug into Quickbooks and kept trying to find the answers. We got another call from the tax office and we asked as many questions as we could to figure our way out of this mess. Finally, between the accountant and the tax office, we figured it out and submitted what we had quickly laid out in a spreadsheet.

I thought about where we were overall. It was frustrating and I didn't like the way things were going. I told Crys that we needed to talk with the children & just try to be obedient. We would let them know a little of what was going on, not just about the taxes, but also about the other the looming changes that might occur.

We gathered in the living room as a family and the phone rang again. It was the tax office again, it was too late. The emailed spreadsheet didn't arrive on time. The matter was going to court. Unless something miraculous happened, we would be facing an even bigger financial problem.

Setting that aside, we kept moving forward with what God had told me to do yesterday. I read Deuteronomy 4:9 and explained to the children that I had been disobedient to God by not sharing this with them when He first told me. They listened intently as I recounted many of the miraculous things God had done for us over the last year just as instructed in the verse. I recounted how uncomfortable things had been but also more amazingly, how God had pulled us through each and every time. We were here, today, healthy and with a roof over our head all based on God's blessing. We explained that it was for their future belief that we were recounting the problems and the times that God had delivered us. The children needed to be able to see a standard of seeking God, finding Him, obeying Him, trusting Him and living in His abundant grace afterward. They need to know that the power of prayer is real & physical so when they get older, it will be first nature for them to abide in God's word, call upon the LORD and not be shocked when He answers them. I led them all in a prayer that referenced God's willingness to love and provide for his children. We prayed that we would be given the strength and courage to trust Him more with less doubt. I wrapped it up with tears flowing from my eyes.

All of us were still on the couch sitting together, when the phone rang not three minutes after we said "AMEN." It was the tax office again... I couldn't do anything but watch Crystal's eyes as she listened to their update. In my mind I thought, "Trust in Him. You have to believe in His goodness. You can't just sit there and say, 'it will be OK no matter what.' You have to believe and have NO DOUBT in God's willingness to provide and protect you. Keep the faith you big dummy!" And then she smiled when the words came out of her mouth. I can't remember if she said "no way" or "awesome" whatever it was, it was good news. The tax office had made the adjustments in time, reduced our burden and filed them for the records to show before anything would have to go to court. It was a miracle. The difference was over three times less what we originally faced. 

Others will say this was a coincidence or some trivial matter but the truth is that was God moving on our behalf in response to prayer, faith and obedience. Now there is much more that needs to be done business wise. There are more papers to fill out and more plans to be prepared but the absolute first thing we had to do was to stop and praise Jesus for His goodness and mercy even to his children who were disobedient.

He spoke of this very same manner of love for His people in Psalm 107:9-32. The Psalmist describes all the gloom, darkness, rebellion, and disobedience of God's people but when they cried out for help, He saved them from their distress. My point isn't that we can get away with being disobedient. Instead, we need to remember that we will make mistakes and fall but we don't have to put ourselves in those positions because we have the power of Jesus Christ in us to live holy lives. If we do make mistakes, it is that same power of Jesus that presented itself in humbleness before the cross in sacrifice for our sins. Through that sacrifice, Jesus has appeased God's mandate for justice and given us God's grace & mercy in it's place. Through that grace we are saved from both Hell in the future and living in Hell on earth (see Romans 8:1 and Romans 8:31).

Have you received that grace openly and with all your heart. Have you looked into the depth of your soul to realize that your good emotions, your goodwill and your good thoughts are not enough to reconcile you with a perfect God. We must submit to Him and repent of trying to be our own God, believing that all experience can be controlled within our own efforts. Things above and beyond our control are working in places we can't see. We need a savior because, alone, we aren't strong enough to overcome what happens in the world. Trust Jesus. Trust in what He has done for you and me.

If you don't know him today, call or email us. We will gladly pray with you through the simple steps to building an everlasting relationship with the savior of all mankind, Jesus Christ.

Just a side note... when we finished praising God, my oldest daughter received this little message on her cell phone:
Good morning, This is God.Message from God

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twh