What is faith?

Ryan was asked to preach at SouthWoods Christian Church in Overland Park because their preacher was away for the weekend. For his sermon he decided to preach on Hebrews 11 and tackle the idea that we as followers of Christ must overcome our beliefs and live by faith. He did a great job! :) He is a man who enjoys adding in the flavor of the times and therefore, he made sure to put some video in the sermon. He interviewed a man by the name of Chuck who leads a ministry in KCK called Urban Scholastic Center who left a good paying job in a great part of the area to go back to his hometown and start a ministry helping teens and families become more than they ever dreamed of. This ministry is amazing, and if you have the opportunity, you should definitely check it out. He also chatted with the preacher of the church about his initial faith leap to plant SouthWoods 20 years ago. Ryan also asked me to share my testimony of moving to Olathe a month ago and the struggles that have come with that move. I wanted to share with you what I said on camera. Here is a link to the video itself for those of you who are more visual learners! :)

I moved to Olathe, Kansas mid-way through this past January to help plant 33 Church with Ryan and Sara Nelson. I left my friends, family and a pretty good job to pursue something I had never done with someone who had never done it, in a city neither one of us had ever lived to help people neither one of us had ever met. Yet somehow, it just felt right.

The funny thing about feelings is that they come and go. There have been moments during the six months between making that decision to move and actually moving where I felt really good about what I was doing. And there were other moments it did not feel so good. But I believed I had made the right decision, and I believed the people that I loved that said I made the right decision.

So I moved. I moved, and I felt......sad. I felt lonely. I felt confused. I had expected to feel excited and pumped up and rejuvenated, and instead I felt sad. I remember crying into my pillow night after night. I remember throwing my hands up in the air and falling back on my bed and between sobs asking God, "Why? Why me? Why now? Why here? Why like this?" And no matter how many times I did this, he just kept saying, "Just wait. You'll see. Just trust me."

Trust. What a funny word. A good friend of mine has been throwing this word at me for the past few months, and you know how you hear something in one ear and totally shut it out in the other ear? Well, apparently that is what I had been doing. So when I happened across Romans 15:13 which says, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit," my first thought was, that is what I want! I want joy! I want peace! I want to feel hope! So I called up my good friend and read that to her. And the first words out of her mouth were, "See! It's all about trust!" I stopped and re-read the passage. She was right. In my desperation to feel joy and peace and hope--to feel the way I wanted to feel--I had missed the main thing. I had missed trust.

This season is not the easiest season in my life. It won't be the hardest, but it is definitely not the easiest. I know that there will still be times that I cry into my pillow because I miss people or I miss things. I have chosen to take a step out in faith, and I know that God is faithful. All I have to do is trust.