I am a dusty Israelite.

I have a confession: I have not often been respectful of the Israelites, especially in their wilderness wanderings.  In fact, during d-group when we have discussed their wandering my comments have bordered on downright disrespectful for slight comedic affect.  It seemed such a simple thing to me: after seeing God's amazing power in the plagues of Egypt, in the miracle of the parting of the Red Sea, of the provision in the manna and the quail, in water coming from a rock, they should have realized that God could overcome the Canaanites and lead them into the Promised Land with smooth sailing, right?  So simple!  Yet they never got it right, and they spent a great deal of time during the Exodus complaining about their lack.  Oh, the irony.

Currently, my husband and I are facing some financial trials.  For someone who grew up feeling safe and secure, this is rather difficult.  I know there were definitely some financial dry spells for my parents when I was growing up, but I never felt the strain myself.  Maybe I was too immature or just didn't care, or maybe my parents were really good at not allowing our finances to diminish our family life; maybe both.  But feeling precarious like this is new to me.  And I don't like it.

It isn't that I haven't seen the Lord provide.  In fact I can name a number of answered prayers.  My daughter is healthy and growing.  I have a good marriage. Once, I saw God quiet the wind after a communal prayer with my camping buddies so that we could have a campfire.  And then He broke our tent and sent us home amidst thunderstorms to avoid sleeping at our campsite which saw a lot of SNOW that next night.  (And yes, we were highly unprepared for that, seeing that it was Memorial Day weekend...)  And yet I am complaining about my lack.

I have a number of prayer requests, all of which I know would ease our financial burdens.  But some have come up with a direct "no" and others we are still waiting upon.  Of course, my timing means NOW.  Immediately.  25 seconds ago.  But God isn't working in that way, and I find myself petulant, worried, stressed, and anything but expecting a miracle.  A few times people have said to me, "The Lord will provide," and I have responded, "I know He can."  But I haven't always had the faith that He will be willing to.  Just as the Lord purposely led the Israelites into the wilderness to avoid a confrontation with the Canaanites that would have sent them screaming back to Egypt, I know that the Lord has directed our steps into this rather scary situation.  He has indeed provided for all our basic needs: we have a car (each, actually), we have a roof over our heads, and we have food.  What more could we want, right?  But I look at the medical bills, doctor visits with (at this time) no insurance, various debts we've been working so hard to pay off (like school loans) and I worry if we'll be able to meet them.  And what this will do to our credit.  And how that will affect us being able to get a home of our own.  And I worry.  And I complain.  Like the Israelites, I don't look back at past miracles of provision (and you can't tell me that the wind quieting in a Colorado-wind-tunnel of a valley just as we say "Amen" is not a miracle!).  I look at the future, where I can't see what's coming next and what the Lord might do, and I get tetchy.  Nervous.  Growly.

The Lord is teaching me a lesson here.  And maybe He's even testing me.  If God conducted His tests the way the schools do, I'd be failing and that just might be the end of it.  But thankfully, He is a Teacher who keeps teaching until you get it.  And will likely review at some future point.  Lord, I'm trying.  Thank You for your patience!

Searching for... perfection?

Things I want to succeed at (in no particular order):

• I want to be a good d-group leader. Scratch that: an excellent d-group leader. Not for my own props, but so that I can provide the best possible discipleship to my girls. Because they deserve that.
• I want to be a good helpmate to Nick. He deserves that.
• I want to do well at student teaching. I want it to be an easy and good experience for my cooperating teacher. I don't want to put my students behind because of my incompetencies. I would like it to be a rewarding experience and to learn a lot. I would like to be a credit to those who work with me.
• I had wanted to be a good intern for the church: to be an asset to my youth minister, to the students (and by extension their parents), and to the sponsors. [Don't know that I really did very well at that one, though.]
• I want to be an excellent Christian. There are analogies of being mirrors or moons [to reflect God's light to others]. Yes, I want that. But really, I want to be a credit to my Savior. I don't want to be one of those that turns others off to God, though I'm ashamed that I have more than likely done that. I wish I were doing a better job on this one. Though, I hope that if it is true that as you get closer to God, you see more of what a sinner you are, then I hope that what I see may be some sort of indication that I am getting closer, though never close enough. I can't wait to go home.
• I want to be a good daughter to my parents, who have done so much for me and given me more than I could ever expect or hope, even as an adult. Failing on that one, too. Sorry, Mom and Dad.
• I hope some day to be an excellent mother: teaching my children to walk uprightly and to love God and love others. If I can hopefully teach them that, then hopefully everything else will fall into place alongside of it.
• And there are probably a long list of others that I could hope to achieve....

The thing is, it's an impossibly long list. And it seems every time I do one well, I drop all the others. I have such impossible high expectations of myself. Impossibly? I don't really believe that. I really think that if I just try harder, work harder, am better, that I can do these things. That I can do them all and more and do them well. But can I really? Should I really? There are some that I just won't give up. If you want to see where my heart is, look at this list. I guess I could go back and reorder them in their priorities, but I have two or three at the top, and the rest all compete for fourth.

These days, I want more and more to do well, to do better, to not really succeed, but excell. At Grace, we talked about excellence. Not so much for our own glory, but for God's. We wanted to be excellent students, excellent servants, excellence, excellence, excellence. I didn't really appreciate it then, but I do now. It's amazing the impact school still plays upon my life. Because I truly yearn for excellence. I want to do credit to those around me. I want to do credit to Jesus.

However, I can't expect to actually do it all on my own. If I did it all on my own, who would the credit go to? Me. Yikes, that's not what I want. The funny thing is, the more I think about it, the more I don't want it. Yes, it's nice to receive encouragement; I've seen so recently how much I want and need encouragement. Even the simplest of messages incited tears. But credit? Nah. That should go somewhere else, and I want to be sure that He receives it. Therefore, I can't do this all on my own. I can't do it, anyway. Instead, I need to rely more on the One who gives me the strength to do all of this: or anything. I'm not so good at it, but that is my spiritual goal for this semester. To rely on Him that I will actually be able to fulfill all that is given to me. And to hopefully be a credit to His Name.