From the Beginning

I've always been one to start reading a story from the beginning and not sneak a peek at the last chapter.  My wife however, finds it easier sometimes to skip ahead to get a better understanding of the beginning.  Many times in life I wish that we could skip ahead a little bit to see why God directed our lives the way that He has.  Since you can see us now as we are and in the places we are going, maybe you can understand a little better our beginning.

A few years ago, while my wife Tracy was in nursing school, she learned about something called Travel Nursing.  The idea sparked our interest right away. We’ve always lived in one state and haven’t done very much traveling, but being able to get paid to travel sounded like a lot of fun! Travel nursing meant better pay (most of the time), travel reimbursement, a place to live for free, and an opportunity to see the country. Who wouldn’t want that?? We were looking forward to this awesome opportunity to travel the U.S. for free and the adventure to do new things in new places. The only real requirement was at least one year of nursing experience. We couldn’t wait for that year to be up!  Well, that one year of experience came and went and although we wanted to start traveling and were continually telling friends of our traveling ideas, we still had some things that were holding us back.  For one, we had a black Labrador that we couldn't take with us and we weren't finding very much success in re-homing him.  Secondly, we had a home that we owned that would be almost impossible to sell and had been looking for someone we knew to be able to rent it from us.  We had plenty of other excuses, but we were "praying about it."  We figured that if God wanted us to do this then He would miraculously just “open up the doors” in His own time.  The problem was that although we were willing to go, we weren't actually getting ready to go and we weren't really making any effort to go other than "praying about it." We weren’t preparing for traveling or doing our part in fulfilling God’s purpose in our lives.

When 2011 came around and we realized that Tracy now had four years of experience, we started to get discouraged that God still hadn’t miraculously revealed an open door to travel. But God in His perfect grace showed us what we were doing wrong. Through the course of many messages that we heard at church, we realized that we weren’t really doing our part. Just because we were praying about God’s Will in our lives didn’t mean that we were acting upon it. We wanted to start making more sincere changes in our lives and really be prepared for whatever God had in store.  We posted an ad on Craigslist for our Labrador and really bathed it in prayer and were able to find a new home for him.  Our next big problem was our house.  The best thing would be to sell it. Not that we were trying to limit God, but it didn’t seem likely that we would be able to sell it with the economy the way it is, and at the time, selling the house didn’t seem like the right answer. We wanted someone to at least stay in our house while we were away. We looked at some different possibilities for renting it out, including leasing companies that could rent it for us.  Yes, this had the potential for us to make money off of our house while we were traveling, but it also meant that we would have to pack up everything in the house and get a storage unit, as well as do quite a few major repairs and changes around the house. Instead we thought we would offer it to friends who needed a house to stay in, fully furnished, and ask that they would just pay the utilities.  Still, no one was interested.  We were flabbergasted that not one person was interested in staying in our home for the low price of upkeep and utilities! We just couldn’t understand it, but God really does know what is best. One day during my prayer and devotions, I felt that the Lord was telling me: "If I can protect the house with someone living in it, don't you think I can protect it with no one living in it?"  We realized that our need to fill the house with someone we knew was holding us back from doing what we wanted to do and ultimately what God wanted us to do. That's when we decided that we would get our lives ready to go and get everything in order so that the moment that God wanted us to go, we would be ready, with or without someone staying at our house.  If the house was the only thing holding us back, we would leave it empty, and let God take care of it for us while we were gone.  Finally, doors were starting to open because we were willing to take the first steps toward what we thought God wanted us to do. We believe that because of our willingness, He started to open even more doors that were entirely unexpected. At this point, we were just excited that we were finally going to get to do what we set out to do and to start getting paid to travel and see the country. But God had even MORE in store for us.

The Lord was really opening us up to different possibilities and preparing our hearts with daily doses of guidance and encouragement through our personal and family devotions, not to mention the depth of the messages that we were receiving weekly from the church pulpit.  There was one message in particular that changed our view from a "traveling adventure" to a “traveling evangelism. Our mission has become: “where He leads us, we will follow.” Our assistant Pastor, Bryan Tanis gave a great message one night on reaching our neighbors for Christ.  I thought, “Wow! With all of our traveling, we were going to have new neighbors every 4-8 weeks. We might end up coming in contact with many lost souls!” It seemed as though the Lord was beginning to direct my focus towards an evangelistic mindset for our travels, rather than a sight-seeing adventure.  Soon after, I started to go out Saturday mornings for the visitation program so that I could learn how to really reach people for Christ and push out my fear of confrontation.  I enjoy being around other people, but I’m not really comfortable with confrontation. And we’re both shy in new situations. But God is really doing some stretching with both of us and challenging us! And by nature, we both tend to be lazy people and would rather take the easy road. But, this road is certainly not going to be easy—exciting and adventurous, yes, but rather challenging, too.

A couple weeks later while Tracy was doing her devotions, she was reminded that all of our possessions, including our house, were not our own but were given to us by God.  Our house was God’s house and He wanted to use it. She knew the Lord was leading her to hand the keys to our house over to the church and let them find someone to use it when they needed, perhaps missionaries on furlough or a family in need. Of course, she wasn’t sure how I would feel about this, so she was a little hesitant to share it with me. But I was just as excited as she was!  So, the following Sunday we talked with Pastor Bryan about opening our home to whomever God wanted and at first, his reaction was rather funny! He just stared at us for about 10 seconds and then said, “I’m sorry. What is it exactly that you’re offering?” We re-explained that we wanted to offer our house to the church while we were traveling. Then his eyes got wide and he said, “Well, nobody’s ever offered me a house to fill! This is exciting!” He said that he would commit the house to prayer and try to find someone that could use it.  We left it in the Lord’s hands and worked on getting ourselves ready to leave. It has actually been a long and tedious process trying to get our house ready for a new family. All of this has been amidst me only being able to lift up to 40 lbs. due to a permanent back injury and Tracy having an unexpected emergency surgery.  I can tell you that: no, the road hasn’t been easy since we made the commitment to go and we’re not even sure where we are going yet or even when we are going or for how long, but God has been truly amazing through all of it. These changes have been hard for us and quite against our character in some respects. But because we were willing to make the changes in our own lives that we knew God wanted us to make, we have been able to at least see the direction that He is leading us. Our traveling is basically going to be a two-part journey. The most important is the evangelism. We have a unique opportunity to reach lost souls in so many different parts of the country. This will be my primary job. But as we go from place to place, Tracy has to also perform the nursing part of it. While she’ll admit she’s very nervous about the evangelizing part, she’s also a little nervous about the part where she goes from hospital to hospital. Nursing isn’t always the same and policies change between each facility, policies that she is legally bound to perform. She will also have to obtain a license for each state we go to, which may require extra testing and money for the licensing. It may sound exciting and easy to travel all across the country, but there will actually be a lot of work.  The work before us is daunting, but we are excited to see how God has been and will be working.  He has shown us that when we commit to do what God wants us to do and step out on faith, He changes us and opens up the doors for where He wants us to go.

You know, God did answer our prayers for someone to live in our home. He answered them well beyond anything we were expecting! When Pastor Bryan said that a family wanted to move in that wanted to start a church plant, the first thing Tracy said was, “How exciting that we will get to share Christ with others while we’re on the road and we will get to be a part of more souls getting saved just because we were willing to give God back our home which belonged to Him anyway!” The Goldsmiths have also had an amazing testimony in committing to doing God’s will in their lives, but that’s their story. Let’s just say, God weaves things together in such intricate and fascinating ways and we feel so blessed to be a part of this! We have been encouraged to see how God is using us and are excitedly looking forward to see how God is going to continue to use us and change us.  We definitely need prayer as we begin our journey and as we strive to follow wherever God leads us.  We won’t know where were going until about a week out or less before we leave and we could be sent anywhere in the U.S.  We ask for prayer for boldness to proclaim Christ and courage to give the gospel even when we feel inadequate.  We ask for prayer for wisdom to find good Godly churches and our willingness to help in local churches in whatever capacity is needed. We ask for prayer for strength when times get tough and a continued ferver to keep on running the race God has set before us.  I’m not even sure if anyone else has ever had this unique opportunity before, at least in current times. When I mentioned this to Pastor Bryan, he said that this traveling evangelism is a lot like what Paul did in his early missionary journeys. We’re not sure how it is all going to work out and we don’t know much of the details, but one thing we do know is that God will take care of us and continue to open doors as we continue to commit to His will.

Let me just challenge you with this: Ask yourself what kind of things you would be concerned with if you were being pulled out of your “comfort zone” over and over again. Are you waiting for God’s will to be miraculously revealed to you? It’s not just enough to pray that God will guide you and that you will simply be in His perfect will. We are expected to make the changes within ourselves and to take the first steps. We need to ACT upon His Word, regardless of how we feel or think. Sometimes God will stretch us (and it may hurt), but if we are willing to trust Him and pursue the course God has set before us, the blessings of action far outweigh the idleness of waiting. Besides, how can we grow if He isn’t stretching us? We will be in a new place every 4 to 8 weeks. There will be no such thing as a “comfort zone” for us. There will be new opportunities to give the gospel and to see souls saved, but there will also be new opportunities and possibilities to fail. Please pray that God would use us as He sees fit and that we would continue to let Him lead us wherever and however He would want.

In the words of A.W. Tozer: “God will not compromise and He need not be coaxed.  He cannot be persuaded to alter His word nor talked into answering selfish prayer.  In all our efforts to find God, to please Him, to commune with Him, we should remember that all change must be on our part.  “I am the Lord, I change not.”  We have but to meet His clearly stated terms, bring our lives into accord with His revealed will, and His infinite power will become instantly operative toward us in the manner set forth through the gospel in the scriptures of truth.”