CHARIS SHALOM

Starting anything from scratch is, in a word, overwhelming.  Starting a new nonprofit ministry is more than that.  Not only do we have to think through everything just like we were beginning a business, but we also have a Board of Directors, public filings, financial accountability and oversight, and a whole new system of managing our daily affairs.  Well, we need to have a whole new system. 

I can picture God having a giggle at the thought of calling us to this work because our life prior to FJ Ministries was, in a word, disorganized.  Suddenly, not only do we need to balance a checkbook, maintain a budget, and save every receipt, we report on all of this to eight other people.  I don’t know about you, but our finances were pretty private and it is a new sensation being open with them.  I like it in many ways, because it truly makes me be more prayerful and deliberate about every dollar.  And, that is something I should have been doing all along.  Now, God has put me in a position where I must obey. 

As I was preparing tonight for our Board meeting this weekend I was looking over our expenses while at the University of the Nations.  I was considering our stewardship.  While we certainly could have never eaten out at all by always staying on base and eating another meal of rice, unknown meat dish, and romaine lettuce, with our kids eating bread with butter and drinking kool-aid, we did, on occasion, enjoy a meal at a restaurant.  But, the thing Tara pointed out was that there was little to nothing spent on personal items, whether of clothing or of any nature. 

Tara made the observation that when you live with the realization that you can’t take anything with you you don’t buy anything you don’t need.  You see, because we were on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and knew we had limited baggage space, we knew we couldn’t take anything back with us that we didn’t bring.  As a result, not only did we not buy anything personal, we had no desire to buy anything personal.  Tara then observed that we should live our lives more that way.  In the big picture of our life, the whole span of our lives here on earth, we will not take anything with us into eternity.  So, why would we work so hard to acquire yet another object that we put away in a closet or a drawer or just set out on a bookshelf and, at least as to about 75% of what we purchase, never use again? 

We don’t have any of this down yet by far, but we are so grateful that God chose us to do this.  We were living life in a very out of control way even though we thought otherwise, or at least I thought otherwise.  We simply made money, spent money, gave some away, but for the most part we did it all without much design or purpose.  Now, we are seeing that God has a purpose, He has given us the opportunity to join in that purpose, and we want to build our lives around resting in His purpose.  It is so delightful to do and rewarding to receive that reality.  Please keep praying for us!