“Living by faith” is a term used by and about those who trust God for their financial needs. Some famous people who lived by faith are George Mueller, Rees Howells, Hudson Taylor, and Lillian Trasher.
There are no set guidelines for living by faith. Rees Howells felt if you even hinted at the need, you were not truly trusting God. Hudson Taylor sent out reports of the need, but never asked people to give. George Mueller issued yearly reports, but if there was a big need, he’d often put off issuing the reports until the need was met. Lillian Trasher wasn’t afraid to borrow money if she felt it would advance what God was wanting to do.
For my wife and I, we are completely open to asking people to help support us, and, in fact, hope to raise our monthly support this year. But we also trust God for our needs.
I wanted to share some of the ways God has provided for us, and is providing for us. This will be a new category for this blog — “Living by Faith.” In these sections, I want to share how God is meeting our needs.
It is not to brag. We are not saying, “Look at us. Look how spiritual we are. Look how great our faith is.” (Trust me, if you saw how much we struggle sometimes, you’d wonder if we had any faith at all.)
Nor is it to say, “Look at our needs. Please give.” (However, if you’d like to partner with us monthly, we’d love it!)
The purpose of this category is to encourage you to trust God for your financial needs.
Now you may have a job and receive a salary. That doesn’t exempt you from living by faith. Sometimes things get tight, and you need a little more than your employer is paying you. Other times, God may challenge you to give in faith — to give to your church, support a missionary, give to a project, etc. — more than you can easily afford.
Ever since I’ve been on the field (since 1997), I’ve lived off of a little support, a salary, and trusting God to meet what those two didn’t. Over the past two years, I’ve had no salary. And since last August 2018, especially, we have seen God provide for us in some amazing ways.
Last month (March 2019), God seemed to give us an abundance from different sources. This month, it seemed to dry up. For the first 18 days, we received nothing. Nada. Zilch. Then we sent out our monthly newsletter, and spoke about a conference we have been invited to in late-June. I wrote:
It will cost us about $1000 for airfare and the conference.
Please pray that we get the money to go.
(If you’d like to help, see the info in red below.)
Within 2 hours of sending out the newsletter, the $1000 was supplied. It was truly an answer to prayer, and great for the conference we’re going to, but it didn’t help put any bread on the table.
Then a couple days later, without making any need known, someone gave us *$120, so that we were able to go buy groceries.
Our family loves to watch the Marvel movies, and with Avengers: Endgame coming out, we were super excited, but we had no money. On Monday, my wife, unbeknownst to me, asked God for the money for our family to go see the movie and get popcorn. The next day, she received the exact amount we needed for the movie (we went today…it was good).
These are three examples of how God has provided for my family just this week. Money for travel and a conference. Money for food. Money for entertainment.
God loves to provide for His children.
He is “The Lord will Provide.”
He is “The Lord is my Shepherd,” so we say, “I will lack nothing.”
It is promised, “My God shall supply all of your need according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
If you have a financial need of any sort, pray and trust Him to provide and meet that need.
*All currencies have been converted to approximate US dollars.