The Lord Willing...

Jeff's mom would say "The Lord willing" before or after any plans she had or anything she hoped to do.  If she was being playful, she would say "The Lord willing and the creeks don't rise." It was her way of saying every step she took was dependent on her heavenly Father. At times you wonder if she was hedging her bets. The way she lived her life, you knew that wasn't the case.

We have been going around telling people we are going to Kenya.  We are very excited to share the plans of our journey. It seemed as if all obstacles had been cleared, we had a sizable pile of "to do" boxes checked and we were all set. We thought all that box checking was our job and we didn't need God's help.

Last week a cloud rolled in that could nix the whole thing.  We don't need to talk about the particulars but it is worth talking about our perspective of what would it look like if we weren't able to go. We were heart sick. How would we be OK if this wasn't God's plan? How would we communicate the news to all those that were rallying around us to tell them plans were changed? Frankly, we felt foolish. We know "The Lord willing" is not just something you say it's something you breathe.

We have often run ahead of God only to be reminded we are not in control. These subtle and not so subtle reminders are, we pray, shaping us into transformed people. In Philippians 4:4 we are told to "rejoice in the Lord always" and in verse 5 we are told to "be anxious about nothing". While we were anxious for a bit, we are now rejoicing and have very little anxiety. Maybe we are becoming better at being the middleman?!