Step of Faith


Having had cancer has made me re-evaluate how I am living my life. For a while now I have been praying and asking God how He wants me to spend my time and earn my money. I have already been doing increasingly more for my local church, mostly behind the scenes, but up-front too.

I am trying to write a book about my experiences of living life with faith and cancer in order to help others and their families who find themselves in a similar position. However, finding the space and time to do this is extremely difficult.

I have been a primary school teacher for 15 years, 14 of which I have spent at the same school. It has been a good season of my life. I have learnt a lot, as well as taught a lot! But the time does come when it is time to move on.

So I had been praying and asking God if this was His plan for my life, that he should open a door for me to leave. Past experiences in life (in fact my last big step of faith which involved moving 1/2 way around the world) have taught me not to jump ahead of God's plan or timing but rather to wait until he 'gives the nod'. So I knew I was going to leave, it was just a matter of waiting for God's timing.

A couple of weeks before the Easter holiday the staff in our department were called to a meeting where we were told that we were overstaffed for the coming school year, so this meant a redundancy had to be made. The first step of the process was to open it up for a volunteer to come forward to take the redundancy. If this did not happen after we got back from the holiday we would then enter a process where the management would decide who it would be.

I prayed about it. My wife and I discussed it. We also received counsel from a few trusted church leaders whom we had already been sharing our initial thoughts with. It was clear to all of us that this was the sign we had been waiting for. This was the time!

So I took a deep breath and wrote my letter, volunteering for redundancy.

Needless to say, my letter was accepted and now I only have a few weeks left of working at the school I have been at for over a third of my life!

People are asking me: So what will you do? Have you got another job? Are you going to carry on teaching?

Honestly, the main plan is to trust God. I've been in this position before and God was faithful then. He will do it again.

I do have several ideas, but finding out if they line up with God's ideas is going to be part of the adventure.

At present I am hoping to work more for the church, spend more time writing my book, work more on my music and performing more, start tutoring those in Primary School who need Maths or English help and exam preparation - I think I will need to find something part-time too in order to pay the bills, but am not sure what this will be yet.

Prayers would be appreciated.

So I am about to take another step of faith, into the unknown of what God has waiting for me. Living life with Jesus is an adventure and sometimes we are asked to take a step into the unknown where we hold on tight to the One we trust and find that He is faithful.

The other day we watched 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel' on DVD. The ending struck me and the final words summarized quite beautifully some of my thoughts at this time:
"The only real failure is the failure to try, and the measure of success is how we cope with disappointment, as we always must...But it is also true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. All we know about the future is that it will be different. But perhaps what we fear is that it will be the same. So we must celebrate the changes."

Comments

  1. I can tell you you Matt that when you do this, He will not let you down and you will never go hungry and will always have a roof over your head as long as you are faithful to His plan and follow His lead. I know from when I did it that it's scary leaving behind the security of a good job with a good guaranteed income each month to work for the Lord full time, but it's worth it. Yes there have been some hard times financially over the years but as I said at the start, we have never gone hungry and always had a roof over our heads and been able to live richer lives. Step out of that boat and follow Him wherever He may lead you and may you and your family be richly blessed in His name. Rev. Adrian.

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  2. This is wonderful stuff Matt. It really fits in well with the theme I'm looking at in tomorrow's service ; we do not know what the future holds, but we know the One who holds the future!

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