Sometimes I just wish that there were a few more guarantees, or that trust required a little less trust….

A couple of days ago I wrote about the difference between a movement and an Institution and I had a link to a podcast by the Chairman of Youth With A Mission, Lyn Green.

One of the other trains of thought that the podcast opened for me, was to do with money. Green talks about the temptation for YWAM to move to the organisation seeking to raise support for its people rather than the people themselves having to do the work of trusting God for their finances. He strongly affirms the need to not move the faith journey from the individual to the organisation, because in his view, where the money is the power will be also.

I understand the wrestle he is referring to. Early on in my time with Fusion I was experiencing considerable stress over money because Fusion took a similar approach to YWAM with supporting it’s staff: encouraging them to trust God for the finances themselves and build a network of personal supporters towards that end.

Fusion’s approach to money was based on Philippians 4:19:

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.”

I remember a fight I had with my Dad, who was then leading Fusion, where I was asserting that the organisation should live by faith so the individuals could have less stress. As I look back it seems obvious that this argument has a few large holes: namely that a legal entity is not endowed with the capacity for faith… a structure can reflect decisions that are based on faith, but thats about as far as it can go.

Leeanne and I chose to base our marriage on Matthew 6:33, which says:

“ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

The “these things” that the verse refers to, in context, is all the stuff of life that can so easily set our agendas. I was challenged by Bonhoeffer in my quiet time this morning. He wrote:

“Possessions delude the human heart into believing they provide security and a worry-free existence, but in truth they are the very cause of worry. For the heart that is fixed on possessions, they come with a suffocating burden of worry. Worries lead to treasure, and treasure leads back to worry. We want to secure our lives through possessions; through worry we want to become worry free, but the truth turns out to be the opposite. The shackles that bind us to possessions, that hold us fast to possessions, are themselves worries.”

The reason I found myself challenged by Bonhoeffer’s words is that I often worry, and often my worry is directed to the things that I do not have, or fear I won’t have. I would love to portray myself as a great person of faith, but the truth is that I’m not. I worry a lot.

Living without a regular income is a scary thing. So often we are confronted with the fact that God doesn’t always work the way I would like him to. Stepping out in trust doesn’t always mean you won’t fall flat on your face. I can still sense the part of me that would like to work with an organisation that had the faith so that I didn’t have to.

I am grateful now for 20 years of God showing up and proving himself faithful, but that doesn’t mean the journey today is not a scary one.The truth is that trusting God in many ways is a lonely journey. It is certainly a journey that must not be attempted alone, we all need fellowship, but it is a journey that calls us to face our fears and our worries, and for most of us (certainly for me) that often has something to do with money. Sometimes I just wish that there were a few more guarantees, or that trust required a little less trust….

Living by faith really has nothing to do with whether you have a wage or not, it is more about where your security is placed, and in all honesty I have a daily wrestle with whether that will be in God or elsewhere.

I am grateful for organisations like Fusion and YWAM that take the risk of encouraging their people to trust. I am grateful for those who have gone before us and lived lives of trust. It doesn’t make logical sense, which I guess is the point.