Man is it easy to try and take over when life doesn't go exactly as you planned! There is something in all of us that feels the need to be in control of our situations, and when that doesn't happen we usually have 2 options - 1 - Lose it, or 2 - Trust that God's plan is best and let go of our reins.
As Christians we trust that the Lord will work out his plans for our lives, that He is faithful and that his plans have our best interest in mind. But that doesn't mean we don't freak out now and then or loose site of His faithfulness.
Steve and I have learned first hand that it is so much easier to trust God than to try and control situations ourselves. Whether it be with finances, jobs, relationships etc, God has proven that his plans and his timings far surpass anything we could have come up with on our own.
I remember looking at our incomes before we got married and comparing those numbers to all the different bills and expenses we had to look forward to. It was all impending doom in my eyes, how on Earth could we make these numbers work for us!? Neither of us had fully lived on our own before, and with me still being in school, it seemed that our incomes combined would barely cover the cost of rent let alone, gas, food, electricity, the mounds of school loans or anything else that comes up in normal life.. I was scared and nervous... partially excited but mostly scared nervous.
Steve and I had many conversations before we got married about how we were going to handle our money, we even went through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University when we were engaged. (which I recommend to EVERYONE whether you are single, engaged or married) Being on the same page was comforting. Then we began talking about what God wanted us to do with our money. Steve felt very strongly that regardless of how much we made, we were still called to tithe 10%. For awhile this seemed crazy. We can barely buy food! How can we afford to give away "our" money?!
Well after struggling with my selfish desires long enough, I realized I had to make a decision. Was I going to trust God or not? Was I going to be obedient, or was I going to be disobedient? Sure maybe giving away 10% of our little income is crazy (if we didn't trust God) BUT we DO trust God, so it was the only logical option we had. After all, it is HIS money.
Matthew 6:33 says, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
SO, that is what we did. Regardless of what we made, no matter how scary it was, we wrote a check before doing anything else. Once that check was gone, we had to trust that God would get us the rest of the way. And he DID!
Again, and again and again. GOD PROVIDED!
Shortly after we got married I was laid off and Steve was out of work as well. But God faithfully opened doors to help us bring in all that we needed. Steve got a short term job to carry him through for bit, and i picked up a new job right away as well. Just a couple months later I had to quit my job to focus on my last semester at design school, but God provided a long term freelance project with the EFCA and gave Steve work at church. This has continued to this day! Now when we look back at our finances it is unbelievable to even think we made it, the numbers make no sense but it worked and we give God all the glory!
We have been anxiously waiting to see when and where Steve's door would open for a job. It would have been easy to rent at our condo for another year until we knew for sure where we would end up, but we felt called to move. So here we are in Champlin. We have seen jobs open up at many schools nearby, and yes Steve applied, but unfortunately it's a competitive time for band teachers right now. He has applied to places all over the metro, willing to drive up to an hour to work if he had to.. I was convinced this was going to be the case for sure!
It's been tough and discouraging at times as well. But as we have seen before. God is good, God's in control and his plans are better than ours.
We looked for houses all over the metro, with a small budget we needed to leave our options open. Much like the job search process, we put in many offers on many homes that we thought would be 'perfect' for us only to find out we were outbid, the seller changed their mind on something etc etc... This too was an emotional roller-coaster! But the whole way we prayed, that God would close doors to the wrong houses and open a very clear door when it finally was the right home for us! After months of searching we finally landed in Champlin. We love it here and believe God has us here for a reason.
So back to Steve's job search... A band director position opened up at Heritage Christian Academy no more than about 15 minutes away.
I'll let him tell the rest....
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