Faith and Righteousness

I’ve started working again. I have to admit, while I hate the idea of being away from Linda and Alicia, it is good to get back to a routine and to be productive again.

Any of you who have been following this blog know that during my weeks off, one of my greatest struggles was trying to be productive with my time. I struggled with wanting to do things and to be accomplished, but not having the energy or motivation to do it. I felt like I was being lazy, yet I really couldn’t get myself to do anything worthwhile.

I think a lot of my struggle comes from a few things. The first thing is my desire to provide for my family. As the head of my household, I do feel the responsibility of providing is on my shoulders. This doesn’t mean that it’s solely on my shoulders, as in Linda can’t work or earn money. But the choice came down to Linda or I working, I believe that it should be me. Of course, there are other ways to earn money too, but I won’t get into that here. My point is, I had two months off, and instead of being thankful for the rest, I felt guilty. I felt like I wasn’t doing my part to provide. But as I write this, I feel God gently stirring my heart saying, that to provide for a family is so much more than just making money. Wow. Epiphany.

The second part of my struggle comes from my desire to do great things.

We have chapel every morning where I work. And on Monday mornings, chapel is a time to prepare for the week’s work and also to update everyone on company business. Yesterday, they showed a trailer for a new theme park they are building in China. The theme park is based on a series of books created by Davy Liu, a Christian animator who used to work for Disney. Davy has written and illustrated a series of children’s books based on stories from the Bible like Noah’s Ark, Daniel and the Lion’s Den, Moses and the Red Sea, etc… These books tell these Bible stories from the perspective of various animals that were a part of these events. It’s really interesting stuff. I really admire Davy, because he’s taken the talent that God has given to him and he’s making something great out of it. All this to say that, when I saw the trailer for the theme park, something bubbled up in me and I started thinking again, “When will it be my turn?” And again I struggled. Wondering if my time will never come, because I’ve wasted too much of my time in the past.

My Daddy God is so sweet. This morning, even though I wasn’t actively seeking to find the answer to my struggle, he gave me the answer. Over the past few days, I've been reading about Abraham, one of the great characters of Biblical history. I’ve read this story, many times, but today as I was reading, one line jumped out at me. Genesis 15:16 – “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”

God had given Abraham, or Abram, as he was called at that time, a series of promises. And after some discussion with the Lord, Abram believed that what God said would happen, would happen.

Now the reason this verse jumped out at me was because God immediately brought to mind another passage in the Bible. Matthew 6:31-34 – "So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Did you see it? “Do not worry about these things. But seek first his kingdom and his RIGHTEOUSNESS. Again, I’ve read this verse more times than I can count, and I’ve always wondered, well, great, but what is his righteousness? How can I seek something, if I don’t know what it is? I always thought righteousness was simply to do good, to do right. But now I realize, that there’s more than that. Abram believed the Lord and it was credited to him as righteousness.

So if I put these two verses together, it seems that God is simply asking us to believe. He wants us to believe that his promises will be true, this is righteousness.

Now this isn't to say that I can just sit on my butt, and just believe that good things will happen and it will. But it does mean that I shouldn't worry. That I keep walking with the Lord, and following him, believing in his promises and his goodness and he will take care of the rest. I feel like I'm probably repeating myself, but it was just something that God showed me this morning once again in a new way, so I thought I'd share.

About Alicia, exciting news! She as of last night's weighing is 998 grams! She's probably over 1000 grams by now! Yahoo! She's getting closer and closer to being able to get out of that incubator, and we're getting closer and closer to being able to hold her. Now we just have to get her off that ventilator.

Please pray for that. We're praying that we can hold her by August 8 - Taiwanese Father's Day! =) Another thing to pray about is her eyes. Her ROP is still at level 1, but the doctor saw a potential problem with her eyes. They didn't elaborate on it, other than to say that it was probably nothing to worry about, but they're going to do a followup appointment next week to see how she's doing. Pray that if there's a problem, that it would go away, whatever it may be.

Soon and very soon our family will be together back home once again. I believe. I believe! We keep moving forward in faith. In a way, that's all we really can do. =)