2 Corinthians 5:7 For we walk by faith, not by sight.

I have given you stories of faith from my life. We have seen many miracles. If you want more miracles stories, check out the allinonehomeschool.com site. Look for my miracle stories in the menu or on the “Lee’s Bible Teachings” page. They aren’t stories that show our great faith, but rather show that we can have faith and believe God performs miracles and trust He can figure out how to take care of us. (That’s why we started these lessons by talking about getting to know God. If we really know who He is, we can know we can trust Him. We can’t live in the rest of this stuff until we know God!)

We once needed $40,000 to be able to show we had enough in the bank to stay in the country where we were missionaries. We had no way to get that much money. We could have started packing our bags, but instead, we prayed. God brought someone to our door, whom we never saw before or after, who asked us if he could send $40,000 to our bank account for us to pass on to a local pastor who was a refugee because refugees weren’t allowed to have bank accounts. We got the money, the bank-statement proof, and then passed on the money. God can figure it out! Don’t try to come up with the solution and ask for your plan to work out. Let God do the planning. He is wise and creative and can work out more than we would imagine! God took care of us by getting us the money, but we also got to be a blessing to the pastor, who in turn was going to take that money to bless many others in his war-torn country.

Abraham is often who we look to in the Bible when we think about faith. God tells him to go, but Abraham doesn’t know where. He goes anyway.

Genesis 12:1, 4 Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” … So Abram went, as the LORD had told him…

When we know God, we can trust Him. We can be happy to just go with Him. He is our desire, our destination. There’s nowhere else we want to be but with Him. When we’re willing to go anywhere and do anything as long as He’s by our side, we’re set for a life of adventure.

Our family lived in two different foreign countries over fourteen years. We went where the Lord led us. The last place we lived neither of us wanted to go to. We wouldn’t have picked it with our “flesh,” with our own thoughts of what would be a good place. We stayed in that place the longest. The Lord certainly helped us find contentment there and blessings came from there, like my daughter’s free art apprenticeship with a professional painter. While we lived there, suddenly over the course of maybe just a week, three of the five apartments in our building emptied. We followed what we believed was the Lord’s leading and we told the landlord we’d take them. We had no idea why. Shortly thereafter, our Christian friend showed up at our door. They needed a new home for a school for refugees they were running. The building that housed them was kicking them out. We had a place for them! It was a joy for me, homeschooling mother of many littles, to be right in the middle of the school and all the activity and participate as we were able, since we were right there!

As you get to know God, you’ll begin to learn His ways of speaking to you. It can be very specific directions, nudging feeling, or desire that grows within you. He will help you learn to move with Him. Once when we were overseas, the Lord put on my heart (Nehemiah 7:5) to collect food and clothing from people at church to take to families living in a local trash dump. When I delivered items there, I met a widow and her three children. One evening soon after that, I was praying and got a picture in my mind of a prostitute standing out in a certain location. I told my husband that I thought I was supposed to go talk to her and asked if we could at least go see if the person I saw was there in that spot. We put the family in the minivan and drove off. There was a woman in that spot waiting for business, dressed all in white as I had seen. I talked to her very briefly about Jesus before a car drove up and she chose to go with the man. It seemed like there hadn’t been much reason for the outing. As we were leaving, I spotted that widow, also standing by the road waiting for business. I got out of the car to talk her. Since we had met before when I had brought her those gifts, I was able to convince her to come with me. We took her to our house. I talked to her about the Lord and took her home with $10 in her pocket, so she wouldn’t need to work that night. I started going once a week to spend time with her. The Lord one night gave her a dream of a large banquet table with enormous fruit on it and a man in white who said to her, “Come and eat. There is no cost.” She told me the dream, and I told her that was Jesus. I told her how God invites us to come and eat without cost (Isaiah 55:1). I was able to lead her to the Lord and baptize her. She got a new profession, and the Lord brought her out of the trash dump and into her own home.

All that to say, there is adventure and blessing as well as sacrifice but also all sorts of amazing goodness out there for those who will walk by faith, letting God direct each next step.

Lesson Point: If we rely on our own thoughts and understanding of situations, we can easily reason our way out of things and miss out on the blessings God has planned for us and through us.

Challenge Question: Are you willing to go when called?

Note: A lesson on listening to God is coming up.