Sun Day?

I praised God for the rain today and was then blessed with a gorgeous sunset out my living room window tonight.  Triple loved that.

The sermon this morning was given by the main speaker from the conference this weekend and he hit the audience with both barrels.  His talk was one worth remembering as he used the “Jesus is in the boat during the storm” section of Bible as his way of asking everyone, “Where is your faith?”  He wondered if it was in the storm, or in the words of Jesus when he said they were going to the other side.  He challenged us to only have faith in words from the Bible and forget negative circumstances in front of us that seem to be blocking where we want to be.  I love that he said we don’t need a prophet to tell us our future - we shape our future by the words we speak. 

He was of the “prosperity doctrine” kind of preacher but Norway really needs to hear that even though they are prosperous financially, they need that extra measure of faith to trust God with ALL things.  It was powerful and convicting at the same time.  Hallelujah for that.

We didn’t have time to stay after church for the café or to visit with anyone, as Turid wanted us to come see her art display out in a city 20 minutes away, so we hustled out there as soon as we could.  She sold over a hundred dollars worth of Kory’s art copies, so that was cool, and she also sold some of her work, and copies of her new book.  With the money from the sale of Kory’s artwork, COMBINED with some money I found today FROM LAST YEAR that I’d stashed and forgot about – we are now over 10,000 kroner to the good (double what we had given away to the building fund at Agape!) – so God is faithful to more than provide for our needs and even our WANTS.  I’m blown away by his provision at a time we were starting to have to cut back, now we can do things like get the front end aligned on our car and take a little road trip for my birthday on Tuesday – woo hoo!

The stop to see Turid was quick, as I had to head back home to make dinner for company coming tonight.  I’d invited Cousin Axel and his wife Kari (who couldn’t make it), and my friend Kristin and her husband Olaf over.  I also invited Tina, since she was going to be here anyway to pick up Daniel, so they both stayed for dinner as well.  Tonight was the only night that fit for all of us, and unfortunately it meant that we missed the Agape Church Volunteer Dinner party they were throwing for all us volunteers for the conference. Oh well, we had a nice visit with our guests and that was probably time better spent.

Now that I know about this “Jantelov” thing – where no one is supposed to exalt themselves… I see it everywhere.  Even today, when our pastor was translating the preaching, the visiting speaker turned to Pastor Mark and started telling him that he wasn’t just the leader of a church, but he was a “leader of leaders” and Mark refused to translate that into Norwegian for everyone to hear.  And tonight, Olaf was talking about his work and said that if he gets an American resume for a job he has to “cut in half” all that they say they can do because Americans like to boast about the littlest of things, while Norwegians will minimize great achievements on their resumes.  What a contrast.

Three weeks and a day left here and I’ll be praising God every single one of them.  I keep calling this rain “heavenly sunshine” and then I remembered the next line in that song and it’s “flooding my soul with glory divine….” And I thought that was funny, since I definitely feel flooded by all the liquid sunshine we’ve had lately.  Kory was telling others about my constant complaining about the weather and they said they don’t even notice if it’s raining – they just carry on with whatever they would be doing and if the sun comes out – it’s a bonus.  They never expect it.  Oi. I guess if I didn’t have expectations of things I wanted to do this year I’d feel the same but I sure wanted to climb a few mountains, only for the view, not for the climb… and therein lies the difference between me and the Norwegians.  They climb mountains just because they are there, not because there is a view at the top.  I have a ways to go, but I’m still going to thank God for the rain because it is what it is.  Hallelujah.