Only Believe

Hi All,

Well, we're back in Niigata. The weather has cooled and it has been raining. I LOVE this weather. I love this area of Japan.

When I made plans to come to Niigata a second time, I had hoped that I would be able to meet with groups of Christians here and start praying for evangelism. On the long drive here, I kept thinking "Is this really from God? Did I really sense His will, or was it just my imagination?" Then, as I thought about what it is that I want to see, my heart would get stirred with zeal all over again. I was going back and forth between these two basic thoughts. Somewhere along the way, the Lord spoke to me a phrase from the New Testament.

"Only believe."

One of the rulers of the synagogue had a daughter who was sick and he asked Jesus to come and heal her. Jesus agreed, but as they were on the way, messengers came and told the ruler that she had died and there was no need to bother Jesus with it any longer. Jesus turned to him and said "Be not afraid. Only believe."

What would happen if I only believed? How would it affect how I pray? ... how I talk to people about Jesus? ... how I make important decisions?

Another thing that has helped is some advice that I gave someone else. They were discouraged about something in particular, and I found myself reminding them that part of prayer is also to be watchful.

"Things are not now what they will be. The Bible tells us to watch and pray. We need to pray, and we also need to be watching for the Kingdom of God. Things change and we need to be ready for it - watching for it. Things are not now what they will be."

Again, I was praying and telling the Lord "I don`t have any physical evidence that what I have in my heart is what will happen here." Then the verse came to mind "Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen."
Faith is the evidence! If I have real faith for this, it is a gift from God, and that is the evidence that it is His mind and will and something that I can watch and pray for wholeheartedly, unreservedly, and unceasingly.

Well, the last two days have been spent packing pears.
My whole body is sore. My hands hurt so bad that I didn`t want to hold my fork at dinner.
It`s midnight and I am exhausted - but happy.