Check List #2

How are preparations for New Zealand going?
Hmmm....

My plans don't quite match up with the Lord's plans.
Cara and I are going to New Zealand. On that point the Lord and I are in agreement. How much money we are bringing. Items we are bringing. Laptop computer. Travellers Insurance. Housing. Jobs. Etc. We reach a conflict. Well, really the conflict is all mine. Everything the Lord does is good and perfect. I just need to realize that.

But how do you trust the Lord while at the same time not becoming panic stricken with each new "snag' that arises?

Case in point:
We thought we had our travellers insurance all squared away. We were going to go with Lonely Planet's insurance. It covered six months abroad and then we would just renew it. Well, upon further inspection of the fine print we learned two things. 1) The insurance is non-renewable. 2) They want proof of a plane ticket AND a return ticket. Uh-oh. It's not possible to buy a roundtrip ticket that returns a year later. We were going to buy our return ticket in NZ. That way, if we had to return earlier than a year there would be less hassle and money would not be wasted. Lonely Plant's insurance only covered for up to six months. What do we do? It took forever just to find this insurance. It seemed like most of the reasonably priced travellers insurance that covered a year was only for UK citizens.
I was upset.
But not enough to give up. Last night I randomly Googled "working holiday travellers insurance." Guess what? I was led directly to an American insurance company that covered travellers from 5 days to 3 years. And it was renewable. And the prices were very reasonable! Why had we never found this in all our past searches months ago? God eased the panic in me in a relatively short amount of time. Thank you Jesus!
He keeps doing this over and over again. Am I making mistakes? Yes. Is He still guiding and correcting my mistakes? Definitely.

Now on to the next two major dilemmas: The apartment search (not going well), and my final paycheck which I will receive this week (no more income until after May 1st).

Am I worried? Just a bit. But what is trust? And what is faith? Do I truly believe that the Lord is going before me? Definitely. One thing I desire is that some of my fellow Brothers and Sisters in Christ do not do the work of the devil in casting doubt into my faith. Statements like, "If it truly is the Lord's will..." and "If you really are listening to the Lord..." do not help to encourage me in my faith. Am I aware that this move to NZ is not going to be easy? Yes. But Christians need to realize that if someone is convinced beyond a doubt that God is sending them they need to encourage them and uplift them even when hard and uncertain times come. We don't know what God is doing in each individual life. And His ways often don't make sense in our limited human minds. If I can't cling to my trust in the faithfulness of the Lord during this time, I will fall apart. Because there will be no one else to cling to. If God can't be trusted who can be? Not humans, we fail ourselves and others constantly.

I don't know what will happen in New Zealand, but I know that God will be there with me, and that's all the assurance I need.

Now to start packing.