But God.......

My role at Rock Creek Bible Church is the Christian Education Elder. My family has attended RCBC since Mother’s Day of 2006.

            I grew up north of Topeka the eldest of 5 children. We didn’t attend church so I didn’t grow up in the church and I didn’t discover the importance of church until later in life. I spent my early life living in this world and of this world, living life as though that’s all there was. I made some choices involving alcohol that weren’t the best and had to deal with the consequences of those decisions. I knew of the Bible and knew what was in it, but didn’t understand what its meaning was. I tried to understand the meanings in the Bible alone. God is much greater than any one person can learn in a lifetime. Even with a church and other believers help, God is still far more complex than anyone can know. But with a church you can learn so much more than on your own.
            My life (and my families), has undergone some changes over the past 18 months. The housing industry has suffered some setbacks over the last 3-4 years and the business I managed in Lawrence no longer exists. From a financial point of view, everything I had was gone. I not only lost my job and its income, but my retirement savings. I had become comfortable in my life and probably relied on what I had and could have lived on that course the rest of my life. Over the course of the next six months we would be forced to use our savings to keep up on the bills that kept coming in. From the world’s perspective this would seem to be the worst time of my life. This is where I want to insert a recurring phrase from the Bible. “But God”… ( from Genesis this phrase is used 19 times and 32 times in the Psalms(KJV))
         God chose this time to help me discover more of who He was and what He has done for me. He gave me a wonderful family and a great church home. He has always provided for me in ways I don’t always see. He had prepared the way through this situation before I even knew what was happening. The first week of July 2011 our van was causing us problems so we went out and traded for a van with fewer miles and were able to write a check for it. I don’t know where we would have been at that time if our previous van would have broken down. As soon as we arrived home with our newer vehicle our refrigerator stopped working, so we bought a new refrigerator. Within two weeks of this, I would be out of a job.
          God also provided a way to deal with the stress of coping with this sudden loss. My daughters were attending VERITAS Christian School in Lawrence. Every fall they have a fundraiser called the Barn Party. The barn party has many different items that are auctioned off to raise money for the school. One item the previous fall was a week vacation at a home at Lake of the Ozarks. I had bid on this and we split the cost with 3 other families to spend this week at the lake. The week we were to spend here was just less than a week after I had lost my job. Kim and I were reluctant to take the vacation but decided that we should go ahead and take this week and go ahead with our plans. It was already paid for whether we went or not. If we wouldn’t have gone I would have been at home and probably just wasted the time worrying about what we were going to do to provide for our future together. The time away gave me time to think about what to do next without making a rushed decision. It also kept me away from the home phone with the numerous phone calls with questions about the business that I didn’t have answers for. The other families we went with all had children our daughters ages; the other unique aspect was that these were the only children they had at home. One particular couple had been through a similar situation many years before, so God put us in that situation to help us through it.
        The following few months were probably the hardest financially, but the greatest spiritual growth I have experienced so far in my life. I had many open hours that I spent walking from our home out through the area we lived in. With the help of technology, I was able to spend the time listening to pod casts. I sometimes would spend up to 2-3 hours at a time out walking and listening to what God was doing and how he was helping me through life. My growth in the area of my knowledge of God increased more in my life at this time than at any other time in my life. I have learned that I can’t depend on anything in this world; I can only depend on Him.

Psalm 121

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
From where shall my help come?
  My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
  He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
  Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
  The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade on your right hand.
  The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
  The Lord will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
  The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.