Follow the Cloud - Living by Faith

I am currently on another ministry trip in America. My family and I raised the money to buy an RV this past summer. This is our first ministry trip in that RV. It is late September and we are in Virginia currently on our way to Florida.

Last spring I was somewhere in Australia or in Asia when I had a dream about this particular trip. I had been planning to travel to Europe during this time. I was going to do revival meetings in Estonia and in Germany. The Lord told me in that dream don’t bother going to Europe now but head toward the beaches of Southeast America. He highlighted North and South Carolina and Florida.

I have never ministered in the Carolinas before and only had a couple of contacts in Florida so to step out in this word of the Lord was a step of faith. Faith is a necessary things when you are in ministry. You can’t please God without faith (Hebrews 11:6).

Faith in ministry is necessary but that doesn’t mean that it is easy. In fact every step of faith has a cost and it is real. People all around you will tell you that God will provide but unless you have that experience of God providing in your steps of faith it is hard. It is hard to constantly live by faith. It isn’t easy. Don’t let anyone try to make faith seem cheap. Faith comes with a cost. Living in the realm of constantly believing and trusting God comes with dependency on God alone. Others will not believe even when you have heard.

The new RV is awesome but it comes with a new way of doing ministry that none of us are use to. We now have to find places to sleep near our meetings and we don’t have a tow vehicle. So now i have to figure out how to get myself to the meetings. I never had to do this before. When we stayed in hotels I could just take the van. Now I have to trust God will provide a way to get me to the meetings while my wife and children can stay in the RV and rest.

Sounds simple right. That is because you haven’t done it.

But when God speaks to me I have to do it. I can only imagine what it must have been like for Abraham to go into a land that was not his own and live the remainder of his life there without really seeing the fulfillment of the dream he received from God.

The first meetings on this trip in Virginia were not what i expected. Five people showed up in an old barn in the middle of the country. I am somewhere near Roanoke. There will not likely be a big offering and most people here don’t know who I am nor do they care. I have been all over the world. I could have flown to Germany and seen larger meetings and been taken care of but God has a plan. I don’t understand that plan. I can get frustrated but I have seen him move before and I will see him move again.

God moves in signs and wonders. Last evening when I was heading to the barn to do the meeting the people that owned the barn decided that we were not going to be allowed to use it after all. The leader of the meetings had to make a few calls. I just stayed quiet knowing that God would work things out. As I looked out the window of the truck that I was in I saw a cloud in the sky that looked like a rainbow. I took a picture of it because I knew that the Lord was speaking to me.

We have to move with the cloud. Numbers 9:17, “Whenever the cloud lifted from above the tent, the Israelites set out: wherever the cloud settled, the Israelites encamped.” They moved with the cloud.

In our lives the Holy Spirit must be our guide. We must listen to Him and do what He says. I am sure when the Israelites moved with the cloud they had no idea where they were going nor did they have any understanding of why they were moving. It can be like that in this life of faith. You step out because the Lord leads you but you don’t know where you are going and you don’t know what he is going to do through you.

We all want to be fruitful and we all have an understanding of what we think our fruitfulness will look like but when you truly live a life of faith you will often find yourself in places wondering what in the world you are doing there. You will question whether you heard or not.

The cloud that I saw in the sky was a sign to me that I was where God wanted me to be and to rest in it. The people where I am this week have provided for us in the best way they can but we have greater need. When I decided that this was the place God had for me my supporters around the world started to send us money to help us in the journey. God is providing.

I want to see souls come into the kingdom. I want to see thousands of souls. When I see only five people in a meeting I can get fru

strated but God is still on the throne. This is not the first time I have found myself in this situation. It isn’t even the tenth time. This is my normal. I have seen thousand touched by the power of God but sometimes it is one and two at a time. I know I am journeying somewhere. I don’t necessarily no where and when I get there that is probably not even the ultimate destination but just another turn in the road.

This is the life of faith but it means I where shoes that fit. It means my steps are free. I am a child of God living a free life and seeing many touched by God. I wouldn’t change this life and I wouldn’t want to live any other way.

I will see many signs and wonders on this trip. I will see many healings and deliverances. That is a faith statment but just watch it will be my reality too.