Stone Cold Mountains

Hello friends and welcome back to He Is Faithful, a series here on my blog. This is part three, so if you are a new, here is a little context:

{Hey there! My name is Ashley and I have been a Military wife for nine years. It has been a wild, wonderful ride. Just like rides at a theme park, it has had it's ups and downs, but I wouldn't change it for the world. Through this Military life, I have seen God's provision in ways that I wouldn't have otherwise. These provisions are especially undeniable once every three years when we pack up our lives and move someplace new. I have recently went through one of the roughest moves yet, all the way back to America from overseas. Along the way, though, the Lord has been showing me just how faithful He is through answered prayer and revelations. I feel led to share all of it with you. What do you say? Let's unpack this together!}

In the last two parts, we started in the month of July, and funny enough, this is the time-frame we will start in today. During this time, we were still in Japan and my move across the pond was starting to feel real. In the last installment, I talked about how we didn't know when we would get our house, which left me shaking in my boots, but this wasn't the only thing that was plaguing my mind.

Not only did I not know how we would manage to afford to stay in a hotel indefinitely, but there was also the matter of transportation, because our car was, and still is, in our home town which is over 2,500 miles away from our destination in the Pacific North West.

Also, there was a complication with our American phone plans. We each had an American phone with an American phone service and number, and we each had a Japanese phone with a Japanese phone service and number. Now, we paid for our American phone service while we were in Japan so that we would have a way to contact others when we visited, and ultimately, moved back to the States. This was expensive, but we thought we were being wise. Although... because it was 'out of sight out of mind', i.e. we weren't using our American phones at all there, we didn't check to see if the automatic payments for said service were going through.

This is a little embarrassing to admit, but when we checked to make sure we were good in the phone department for our move, we were met with a large bill and no phone service on our American devices. Why not pay the bill and have them turn the service back on? Well, there was a small problem with that, although we did pay the bill, we would have to go in-store to get our service turned back on, which was quite literally impossible because we were in a totally different country.

So, we would be moving to a place we had never been to before, with no transportation, no way to contact anyone, and, to add insult to injury, Kevin wasn't assigned what the Military calls 'a sponsor'. A sponsor would be responsible for picking us up at the airport, which was about 37 miles from the base, and dropping us off at our hotel. Needless to say, we felt totally helpless. Now, hopefully you can see the full extent of why I was so anxious.

We had no choice but to lean on God, and that we did. At this time of uncertainty, we had no idea what was coming - that God would take all of these worldly problems, these mountains, and tie up each loose end perfectly. Looking back, I realize just how much growth and surrender came from leaning on Him in the way we did. I think, as uncomfortable as it is, we all need to find ourselves with nowhere to turn but God. When we have no where to turn but God, conclusions are drawn that would otherwise not be drawn and Godly provisions are made more obvious to our earthly eyes.

While I was still leaning and trusting that it would all be okay, I continued to dig into His word. I have been going through the Old Testament since January and, at the time, was finishing up in the book of Deuteronomy. In this book, I was met with verses that seemed to speak to my situation. Here is just one of them:

"The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."

Deuteronomy 31:8

"I will go before you. I will never leave you..."

I felt these words in my spirit. These two sentences were on repeat anytime I felt anxious about how things would look when we finally touched down in America. I kept finding them in my journey through the Old Testament too. Here is another example in the form of the Israelites preparing to cross the Jordan:

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

Joshua 1:9

"I WILL go before you. I will NEVER leave you..."

And even in my worship time I came across some version of these words. For example, "I am not alone. You will go before me. You will never leave me." (I Am Not Alone by Kari Jobe)

And friends, He truly did go before me:

• Just like how I mentioned in the last part, our housing situation was resolved with answered prayer.

• We were able to purchase a second car here for a great deal that, in my mind, could only have been God.

• We were able to find a new phone plan that didn't require us to go in-store, although we did have some complications at the beginning, it all worked out at the end.

• The person that my husband would be taking over for contacted us a week or so before our flight and offered to pick us up from the airport. And thus, we had a way to get to our hotel that didn't involve waiting for shuttles or walking. Which was such a God-send because after traveling for over 24 hours with little sleep, that would have been a challenge.

• And something that wasn't mentioned until now was our cat, who was traveling with us. She did so well on the flight with no accidents in her carrier. Not knowing how she would fair on the plane was once also a worry of mine.

Everything came together. And now, God is showing me how worry, anxiety, and fear are all just tactics of the enemy. The goal of these tactics are to get my mind off of God and onto worldly problems. I'm not suggesting that our problems aren't a big deal or that we should ignore them. No, our problems might be big and scary and difficult, but our God is much, much, much bigger than those problems. What I am saying is that, instead of focusing on all the problems, it is much better to focus on Christ.

When we focus on Christ, the reliever of the world's debt, the creator of the universe, the King of everything, our problems don't seem so big anymore. They seem a lot like molehills in the grand scheme of things. And even if we can't see them as molehills, even if we do perceive them to be mountains, when we focus on Christ, the one who is able to move mountains, we aren't intimidated by them anymore. Instead, we are able to look those mountains in their stone cold face and tell them, "MOVE!"

And I have found them to move, with God's help, every. single. time. No, never in my timing, but in His timing. And I have found His timing to be absolutely perfect.

When I rest assured in this knowledge, neither mountains or enemy tactics can end up stealing my joy.