Walk by Faith

Coming home from Summer Project in Wildwood, NJ last summer, I had had the summer of a lifetime.  I had fallen deeply in love with my Savior, He had used me to lead new believers to Him, I met some incredible people, and made some wonderful friends! With all that being said however, I still did not think I would ever be going back to Jersey. I had an incredible summer being used by the Lord but I had no desire whatsoever to go back just to be completely honest. I kind of had the mentality of,  ok God, I gave you this summer…now next summer I have to get an internship and that is basically what I was set on.  If  you know our God like I do, you know that he loves to redirect “our plans” and make them HIS plans, which I am super thankful for because He sure knows more about my life than I do.  With that being said, I am reminded of Proverbs 16:3,4 which says “Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its own purpose.”

I returned from New Jersey on August 6, 2011, on January 5, 2012, God began placing Wildwood on my heart and to give you the full effect of what He did in my heart throughout January I am actually going to share some things I have written in my journal.  The morning of January 5, 2012 I had written down Proverbs 3:5-6,

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not lean on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.

Okay, the things in bold were circled in my journal and then “do not” was underlined. I had read this verse many many times before, it is a very common verse known to most Christians and I probably honestly learned it in middle school. This verse had never stood out to me like it did that morning when I read it. I wrote in my journal:

                “I need to TRUST God with every aspect of my life, trust that everything is in His timing. Realize that I will never understand God’s ways, quit trying, trust that He is in control.”

Well that was really all that happened that morning, I had no idea what was to come that night though. That night the Lord began placing Wildwood deep on my heart. I literally wrote in my journal “I have no desire to go back but where God leads me I will go.” God began reminding me of missed opportunities that I had missed in New Jersey with some coworkers.  That night I literally tried to go to sleep for hours and could not so I finally got up and realized I should probably write down what the Lord has been saying to me and that is exactly what I did, thankfully I did because I have had to go back to it several times since then to be reminded that this is what GOD wants for me. That night I really prayed and prayed that God would show me what he wanted me to do this summer. We also had a facebook group from project and I posted on it and asked everyone to help me pray about this. The next morning I woke up with a message from my director of summer project, keep in mind I had not talked to her in a long time. She said:

                “Chels, laying in bed just trying to wake up and LITERALLY was just praying God would have you SPECIFICALLY come back to Wildwood this summer. Then reading your Facebook post almost immediately after you posted. Could be coincidence, could really be the Lord. Something to consider… It may just be His good plan for your summer.”

I was absolutely mind blown waking up to that. If any of you really know me, I need things black and white, basically hitting me in the face for me to know what I am suppose to do. The fact that God sent that to me the night after he began working on my heart was clearly Him preparing me for something bigger than myself this summer.

From this point I began praying about the summer and just telling God, if this is where you want me to go this summer, you are going to have to change my heart, you are going to have to give me a desire and passion to go back and that is exactly what he began doing, slowly, piece by piece.

My next journal entry that I wrote down was on January 23. It said:

                “So I hadn’t had a good quiet time in awhile so today I set down and spent some time in the word and in prayer. I was praying for and about all kinds of different things, but one thing in particular was about this summer. I was asking God to show me his plans for my summer. Well three hours after my quiet time I received a message from my project director again. She was saying she felt like God wanted to use me back in Wildwood and wanted to know where my thought process was on the matter. I responded and told her I would continue praying about it.”

The next night we had an incredible speaker at Crusade. He was speaking on Luke 14 about how if we want to be a true follower of Christ, we have to lay down all of OUR dreams and goals at the altar. At this point I realized if I didn’t apply to go back to Wildwood as student staff then I would be blatantly disobeying what God was telling me to do. It was like at this instance God was screaming out “Chelsea I want you in Wildwood this summer, how much more clear do I need to make it for you?” Immediately after Crusade, I went home and put in my application for Student Staff in Wildwood, New Jersey.

This was a huge leap of faith for me because this literally meant me sitting aside every plan I had this summer, my bank account with NO savings and trust that He is COMPLETELY in control. I wrote in my journal, “right now I am trusting God with this and just praying “Not my will but thine be done.””

Two days later my quiet time was about “Risky Business.” It said:

                “Take risks, remembering that you walk by Faith, not by sight. Risks feel dangerous and make you vulnerable. But that dear one, is what Faith is all about.”

Now between January and now, some other things happened as well. I was called for an interview with a company I had been trying to get an internship with before I ever decided to go on project. The internship wouldn’t start until the end of June and I am suppose to go home the first week in July so I thought I would possibly be able to do both, so I went on the interview.  The interview went well, I wasn’t suppose to hear anything back for at least a week and I received a call the next day offering me the position, the catch was I had to give them a response in 24 hours! I immediately called my director and asked her if there would be any way possible for me to leave project two weeks early so I could take this internship and still get to go on project. She said she didn’t see how it could work out but would talk to the other director and hopefully they could come up with a way to make it work out. Well in my mind, I just knew it was going to work out and be able to do both, I mean why would God give me this opportunity if I wasn’t going to be able to do both? At this point I had told her, “regardless of the decision, project comes first and foremost.” Well, I had told her that without me really thinking it was possible that they would tell me I couldn’t do both and that was just what the verdict ended up being. They said they couldn’t find a way to make it work for me to do both without it affecting the project. I was a WRECK. I was confused and crying my eyes out (I hardly ever cry). I was like God why did you give me this opportunity?? I would have rather you just not even let me get it so I knew what you wanted me to do. At this point I had about 8 hours to make a decision to accept the internship or not. I had to choose between going on project or taking this internship. I had no idea what to do because I had honestly felt that God was sending me that internship. I called so many people and talked to them about the situation and asked them to be praying with me. We were all just praying that God would make it very clear what I was supposed to do and give me a peace about it. After a few hours I had the chance to talk to my discipler who had walked alongside me through this whole process. She basically said Chelsea, I feel like if God had wanted to use this internship to provide for you then it wouldn’t have came so abruptly, he has been preparing your heart piece by piece for New Jersey.” That was exactly what I needed to hear. After I got off the phone with her I went and read my journal entries from January and was like yes  God, this is still where you want me.

You see, I money is always a sticky issue with me. I work my butt off while at school to provide for myself. Last summer on project I had the opportunity to work, but this summer I will not. I am going to be going 7 weeks without working whatsoever and I literally have about $100 to live on while I’m in New Jersey for 7 weeks. That is why turning down this internship was so big for me. I would have been making about 4 grand in a month and a half. That was huge for me. But I finally realized, taking the internship would not cause me to trust in God whatsoever to provide for me, the money was already there, but choosing to go on project, I was relying on him 150% of the way. There is no possible way for me to go without God providing a way for me. At this point God has provided me with about $900 out of the $1350 that I have to raise just to go on project. This $1350 does not include my airfare or food or anything. I am provided one meal a week while I am on project, the rest will be on me. 

If you would please just join me in prayer that God would provide in abundance for me to go on project. That he would provide enough to cover the cost of my project and for me to have money to eat off of while I am up there I would GREATLY appreciate it. I am so thankful for those of you who are already supporting me on this journey, both in prayer and financially.  I leave in less than a week now and am simply trusting that God is going to provide for me to be there. It has been so obvious that this is where he wants me to be this summer and I know he will make a way.