by …In Jesus Above
I love this hymn written by James Wells in 1918. In New Zealand, since it rains regularly, while hanging my clothes outside, I used to sing, “Hanging by Faith…in Jesus above…trusting, confiding in his great love. Free from all rain, I hope this day will become. I’m hanging by Faith and feel not alone.”
But in all seriousness, living by Faith has brought me much closer to my Saviour, in the past 15 years, than I ever imagined before we went to New Zealand. Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Lewis and I should probably claim this verse as our life verse.
The Lord has taught me much about faith. The main lesson—it isn’t faith if I can figure out how it will work.
Over 20 years ago, I took my first big step of faith and, in the middle of deputation, flew to New Zealand for 6 months without enough money to survive. I told Lewis before we left, “I don’t know how we were going to live in a foreign country for 6 months and keep the house we were renting in the States and pay the bills in both countries.” He asked if we should cancel even though we had the plane tickets. I said, “No. I just don’t ‘see’ how it will work out.” We got on the plane, and six months later, returned to the States. Praise the Lord, we never missed a bill. Plus, we even repaired the air conditioning in our van for deputation.
Then we finished our deputation and moved permanently to New Zealand on Christmas Day 2010. Lewis said, “You know we’ll never own a house again.” I said, “I know. I’m on the plane, aren’t I?” After two years in New Zealand, my oldest daughter and I went viewing open homes in our town on Sunday afternoons. One Sunday, I came home and threw the pile of home papers that had collected on our kitchen counter into the trash. My faith fell into the trash can that day as well.
A few days later, our landlord knocked on the door and told us we’d have to move. Lewis started looking up a house that was financially out of our reach. With my lack of faith at the time, I was reluctant, but a month later, we were moving into that house.
The housing market was different then; it was a buyer’s market. The house we bought was probably in the worst shape of any other homes in the area because a widow had been alone in it for the two years since her husband’s death. It had been on the market for two years, and nothing had been done to it.
Two weeks later, I sat crying with ivy dangling on my head from a collapsing fence. The gardens were overgrown, the retaining walls were collapsing, and the house needed major updates inside. I cried out, “Dear Lord, I hope you haven’t given us more than we can handle.” Thirteen years later, God had given us the strength and the finances to fix the home and gardens up to match the neighborhood. By the way, we got into the house for what we were paying in rent. When our mission board and sending church found out we could buy a home instead of rent, they agreed it was a better use of God’s money.
The months and years lapsed. Not only were my plants growing—my faith was growing. If we allow God to work in our lives—our faith should never stop growing. We may hit speed bumps in life that slow our faith growth down, but that’s not due to our loving Saviour, it’s due to our human determination to control everything and not let go and let God control our lives.
Fast forward fifteen years in New Zealand, and God miraculously opened a door for us to return to the States. We didn’t plan this, but God obviously had other plans for our lives.
After heaps of preparation and shipping our container, we put the ‘For Sale’ sign in the yard, sure that the house would sell immediately. Three months passed, and we dropped the house price. We figured the Lord was testing us to step further in our faith and trust him to provide financially and not to lean unto our own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”
Another two months passed—no house sale. We took a huge step of faith and put the house up for auction. I Peter 5:7 “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.” I was casting our cares in prayer, but still, I was a nervous wreck. I know I shouldn’t have been, but I’m human. The auction came and went. Not a soul came to bid on the house.
A few weeks later, I realized that Easter was a month away. Lewis and I talked and agreed to drop the price again. We needed to get a hold of God with specific prayers to sell the house. I wanted a contract on Easter Sunday to lay at the foot of a small wooden cross, which we had on our kitchen counter, to represent our sacrifice to him. Our Lord sacrificed his life on the cross, and we would sacrifice our house for him. We knew, in our eyes, this wouldn’t give us much money to work with for buying another house, but we figured we had nothing left to sacrifice but our lives and the house. Being missionaries, we had already sacrificed everything else, our Stateside home, family, friends, jobs, dreams, etc.
As a side note, many who saw our house listed for sale in New Zealand saw a huge number and probably thought we came back rich, but that was New Zealand dollars. The cost of living is double over there. So, take your home price, double it, and that would be the cost of your home in New Zealand dollars.
Praise the Lord, he sold our house, and we were signing the contract on Easter Sunday EST. I laid our copy of the signed contract under the little wooden cross on my kitchen counter. Things moved quickly. We settled. The agent took her fee, which was high enough for her to take a three-month world trip. Then we paid the m
ortgage off, paid the container shipping company, bought plane tickets, paid off other accounts in New Zealand, and wired the remaining money back to the States. The exchange rate was the worst in our fifteen years in New Zealand. We got .60 US cents for every New Zealand dollar.
Hebrews 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please him…”
Okay, here we were Stateside-bound on probably my last international flight anywhere in life. “This has to be the largest step of faith I could ever possibly take,” I told Lewis and kept telling myself, knowing we didn’t have enough money. Reality had also hit several months prior, as we realized I would also need a part-time job when we returned. We’ve been together in the ministry for 23 years, and now we are separated. “Faith—keep having faith—God has a plan for it all,” I keep telling myself.
Since we arrived back in the States, many have said, “You must have faith.” The last 23 years have been filled with faith-building steps. I give the Lord all the credit that my faith grew gazillions while in New Zealand. For example, during times like sitting alone in a waiting room, while Lewis was having back surgery, and I didn’t know if he would ever walk again. It also grew when I received a call that I had cancer for a second time. As I write this, I think about how I shouldn’t be alive. In 2021, God had the ‘Social System’ in New Zealand discover my appendix needed removing. After the surgery, the surgeon told me that it was filled with a rare, aggressive cancer. If the appendix had ruptured, I would have died in a matter of weeks. I could write a small book of all the times God grew my Faith in the past 23 years of ministry.
Fast forward again, our plane landed in the States, and we didn’t even know where we were staying in Westminster until 48 hours prior. Our life was in a container sitting on the church’s parking lot (thanks to a dear friend). We had clothing and our whole life in three suitcases each as we sat in our Sending Church’s profit room (we have the best sending church in the world) and pondered our next step.
Almost two weeks later and two days before we left for Westminster, I asked Lewis, “Do you know where we are staying yet?” His reply, “No.” Okay, I must confess, my faith hit a speed bump, and I had to take a walk around our sending church’s parking lot. All we had been through, and we didn’t even know where we would lay our heads in two days. Then, thanks to dear friends who are letting us use their basement as a temporary home, we finally found out where we were staying.
Now, we are looking for a home, and we will have a mortgage. We didn’t come back to the States independently wealthy, like some think. We have expenses and bills like everyone else. We can only afford an entry-level home; finances are very limited because we’ve had to absorb almost all our moving expenses ourselves. But God blessed us in miraculous ways over the last 15 years in New Zealand, and he will help us here. If God hadn’t given us a house in New Zealand, we wouldn’t be in Westminster, because even if I had a full-time job, we couldn’t afford to live here. So, over 13 years ago, God had a plan when we bought our house in New Zealand. He knew that we’d need that house to survive.
God built our faith strong each day, and it continues to grow stronger each day as I learn to rely on him instead of people. Hebrews 13:5 “…I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” God didn’t leave me in the waiting room during Lewis’s surgery, he didn’t leave us in New Zealand, and I know he won’t leave us here.
Years ago, the verse Hebrews 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please him…” hit home personally for me. It was in the middle of our years in New Zealand. Since that time, I’ve made it a personal daily prayer of mine to make sure I’m having faith in my Heavenly Father and Saviour. I want to be pleasing to him. So, I continue striving to build my faith through his strength. Psalms 46:1 “God is our refuge and strength…”
Recently, some people have told me to have faith. They must have hit me on a faith speed bump day, but I told Lewis, “They have no idea what we’ve been through and the faith steps that we have made in 23 years and the faith steps that we are making now.” But that’s okay. My Heavenly Father, who knows the heart, knows.
I’d like to encourage everyone who reads this to take the time to analyze your faith. Have you been pleasing to God today? Remember my simple definition of faith above, “It isn’t faith if you can figure out how it will work.” If God desires you to do something and you can’t figure out how—do it anyway. Let God work out the details. Notice Hebrews 11:6 doesn’t say if we have sin, we are unpleasing to God. Sin’s another story. It says that if we don’t have faith in God, we aren’t pleasing to him. Ponder that verse and analyze your faith today. Is your faith growing? Are you pleasing to the Lord?
Living by faith in Jesus above,
Trusting, confiding in His great love;
From all harm safe in His sheltering arm,
I’m living by faith and feel no alarm.
(Public Domain)
