Faith or Fear - 02/28/2011

According to the Dictionary.com Christian Theology defines faith as follows.
"The trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved."

This post might surprise some of you because you view me differently than I do myself. Your view may be based on your relationship with me or it may be based on some insight you have about me, my past or my future. If this post is a let down to you I am sorry but I am trying to be real about how I see and feel about things. Not how I think you want me to feel.

Also just a note. I know all of the cliche answers, comments and encouragements that are going to pop into your head. So if that is all you got well that is all you got. But if you are willing to bare your heart and get down and dirty in the truth with me in this, that is what I need. Call me out and help me see the errors. The Cry of my heart right now is that God will not allow me to stay the way that I am. So pray and seek Him for me because you might be a part of the answer.

February 26, 2011 is a day that will stand on its own in my memories for the rest of my life. My second born child and my first "Little Man" as mommy has taken to calling him was born. You are thinking to yourself how great and wonderful it must have been. Now you're thinking to yourself, the way he just typed that makes it sound like it wasn't.

That is not what I am saying. It was one of the three most beautiful and precious moments of my life(Wedding and Jillian's birth are the other two). The miracle of life, the joy and pride of being a part of that new life. Wow, what an experience. It is not one that can be sold, imitated or shared. It is an experience that you must have to fully appreciate.

But in the midst of great Joy, Beauty and life there was a weight. A weight so extreme that some of our close friends heard it over the joy of Joshua's coming when I called and let them know about it. A weight that in the hours prior to his birth I had called out for prayer, because our plan couldn't have Joshua born any earlier than March 1, 2011.

We had a plan in mind for our future and our hope for Mandy being able to transition to being a stay at home mom. In the very moments of the wonderful events that where transpiring and that we were being blessed to be a part of, the future weighed me down.

Faith that our God who has promised to provide for us and give us our hearts desire was tested under this weight. We truly believed that with the next baby (Joshua) that I would, upon completion of my degree, be finding employment that would allow us to switch from a two income family to a single income where I would be the sole source of income and Mandy would stay home with the children.

The job hunt has not gone well up to this point and we had purchased AFLAC insurance to help with living expenses for a period of up to six months after the baby was born. AFLAC requires you to be enrolled into the program for ten months before benefits will be paid out. Our ten month deadline was March 1, 2011. OUR plan was that Joshua, who had a due date of March 12th, would be born after March 1st and we would have 12 weeks of (unpaid) FMLA from Mandy's work using her 15 days of paid leave to cover health insurance expense over the three months while I found a job. Then at the end of the 12 weeks if she had to go back we could swallow our pride and she would go back until something else came about. Otherwise she wouldn't go back and we would have another 3 months of AFLAC benefits to help with expenses. While Mandy worked on her business plan or some other alternate sources of income that would allow her to stay home.

The weight was the knowledge that with out the AFLAC benefits, Mandy has three weeks worth of income to either use all at once or over 12 weeks. The fear was that God wasn't listening to our prayer or our hearts desire. The fear that once again my faith didn't seem to be enough.

I have struggled in one very large area of the Christian Life for a long time. It is the area of faith. Particularly in the area of believing that God loves me enough to fulfill the desires of my heart. That He would take the time to listen to my request for me and answer them. I have never had a problem for praying for others but for myself it has always been a challenge. I have also found it easier to pray prayers that didn't require a lot of faith or that allow the little cop out of, if it is your will.

So where does this leave me. Fearful of the future. Wanting to have faith that God will meet the desires of our life but afraid that his plan and our plan is different. Trying to make changes that I know he wants me to make but struggling with impatience with the time it may take to see the results. Filled with the joy of being the father to a new and wonderful creation of God. Amazed that God could take my genes and create Joshua Caleb Mattos. But among all of that there is a fear that I will not be able to raise him in such a way that he will fall in Love and serve God in a manner worthy of his Name or God's ways.

These are my thoughts, my fears , my emotions. But through it all I know I want to be better than I am and to be worthy of God's call on my life.