My last week as an official staff member at Calvary Chapel Port St. Lucie (CCPSL) is this week.  It’s been an incredible journey and a bitter sweet ending.  Thursday will mark my last official day at CCPSL.  I plan to blog about some of the many things God has taught me as a staff member in the near future.  Today however, I want to talk about God’s provision for His people.  Let me first start by stating that I have never really considered myself a seasoned ‘faith walker’.  There have been times in my life when I had to step out in faith, but as I reflect they seem small in terms of what we recently went through.  As a recap, I stepped out in faith in July and spoke to my Senior Pastor about how I believed God was calling my family away from Port St. Lucie.  Even with the down economy, lack of jobs and various other hurdles, I felt I needed to obey what God was putting on my heart.  So we stepped out in faith without a real place to go (aka J-O-B).  I’m sure it seemed crazy to others…heck, it seemed crazy to me but there was something inside of me that kept telling me that we simply needed to do this.  I love the Lord, I love it when He moves…it’s just plain scary when He asks you to do something like this.

Well it was five weeks ago that we took a step of faith.  About two weeks ago I thought I had an engineering job lined up.  I knew the guys that I was going to be working for and to be honest the job was fantastic.  I really thought at the time that this is what the Lord had for us.  Given the fact that I needed to find a job in 6 weeks this seemed to be right on time and seemed to be a good fit for me and my family.  It was exactly two Sundays ago and for whatever reason my spirit was not settled.  I could not identify what exactly was causing my discomfort but I felt like God was saying that ‘you are not done with students yet‘.  It was not an audible voice but the statement God was making was clear.  I decided to email a friend in the ministry who is on staff at South Brook Church to see if he knew of anyone looking for a Student Ministry/Geek/Creative person.  Kelli and I have always had a desire to move to either the Carolinas, California, and Colorado (all C’s…I know)…this will be important to know for later.

Monday afternoon I got an email from my friend wanting to talk.  I gave him a call and suddenly an awesome door opened.  Later on that day, I got an email from the Engineering firm, it appeared that the Job opportunity had basically disappeared.  The night before and several days for then, Kelli and I had been praying that God would close the doors that needed to be closed and to point us towards the open doors.  Well this was a closed door for me.  As it stood, there were no jobs locally (short of driving 3-4 hours a day via a commute).  We believed God closed the door to working locally.  After talking with my friend it appeared, now more than ever, God had intervened in a big way.

After a visit to the church and an opportunity to spend some quality time with the staff, we just knew this is what God had for us. Pastor Rob is an incredible visionary and the entire staff rocks.  We’re really looking forward to serving alongside of them (and beating a few ‘select’ staff members in local triathlons)!  We are parting ways with Port St. Lucie on October 20th. We plan to make a slight detour to visit Walt Disney World for a few days and then it’s off to Weddington, NC!  We are super excited about this opportunity and know without a doubt it was the Lord.  The biggest thing I learned from this experience is that God’s perfect timing is often times *our* last minute.

I will share one more story of how God confirmed this move for us.  Two nights ago we were reading a devotion to the kids.  We were in Psalm 147.  The devotion addressed how we need to praise God no matter what.  The example that was used in the devotion was God providing a job for the Father of the family.  It was a gentle reminder of God’s love for us and a confirmation of our calling.

P.S.  If you are interested in renting a great house (3-2), let me know!