(This testimony is long overdue… This happened way back 2014.)
2010 when I received the calling to go for missions. It all started during our short term mission trip to Cambodia during that year. After that, every year, I go out for short term mission trips to other nations.
2011 when I attended a missionary training program to equip myself in cross-cultural missions. I went out for 2 short term mission trips that year even to the point of sacrificing my job (I did not say to leave your job for the sake of missions, ask God and decide according to His will). But still, God did not want me to be jobless and continued working in the same company after these trips.
2012 when I planned to study for world missions but God told me, “Wait patiently”. Okay, I obeyed.
Until Jun 2014, during the worship night of our mid-year prayer and fasting, when God spoke to me, “Go to the nation!”. I thought God is telling me to go for full time missions.
And my immediate response was “Lord, how about my work?” And He replied back, “Trust in God, trust also in Me”.
And I said, “How about my family?”. And again, God answered, “Trust in God, trust also in Me”.
Still wrestling with Him, I whispered, “How about my future family?”. And for the third time, He replied, “Trust in God, trust also in Me”.
I wrestled with God for few days until I surrendered to Him and said, “Ok, Lord, I surrender! Let Your will be done but give me an exact date when!”. And as I read the bible, these verses struck me:
But now be strong, O Zerubbabel’, declares the LORD. ‘Be strong, O Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land’, declares the LORD, ‘and work. For I am with you‘, declares the LORD Almighty. – Haggai 2:4 (emphasis added)
Be strong and work. For I am with you. – the words that “rhema” to me and encouraged me.
Moreover, another verse that got my attention is Haggai 2:1:
On the twenty-first day of the seventh month, the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai:
Twenty-first day of the seventh month – this date has something that excites me to search what date is this from our current calendar. Converting to Gregorian calendar (the current calendar standard), it is October 17. And I asked God, “Lord, surprise me this October!”
I lived the same way after that. My project at work was supposed to finished in May but unfortunately, we were extended. There were also some internal job offers (as programmer) that I turned down after I prayed for it even though it seemed to be a good opportunity for me.
September came, I was still in the same project. I got a call from our regional office and they are offering me a managerial position. I prayed and accepted that offer. My new manager responded back that I need to go to a different country (in our regional office) by end of September until 3rd week of October (for 1 month). And this reminded me of what God told me last June: “Go to the nation”, when? October per Haggai 2:1.
I was amazed during that time… Indeed, God answers specifically! We just need to ask specific things to him and learn how to be still and listen!
Indeed, I was in another country at that period. God showed a lot of confirmation during my stay there which I said to myself, “I belong here!”. And it was February 2015 when I moved to that country to work and to fulfill God’s calling in this place.
And as I recalled as well what happened to me, God indeed orchestrated everything – the extension of my current project and the internal job offers that I turned down. I thought that in case I accepted the internal job offer that time, I will still be in the Philippines.
God is able to do amazing things. Some may say it was just coincidence, hmm… Whatever they said, I believe God is working in us and doing impossible things out of our grasps. He talks to us, listens and answer our prayers. All we need is to be still, wait upon Him, ask specifically and listen attentively. God will definitely answer at the right time and He will prepare us as well.
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