Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness....

The lovely Rogue River as shot by a new friend, during our rafting trip together.

Jake and I were on a discovery trip to Grants Pass Oregon (end of July 2007), believing that the Lord was orchestrating a possible move to that location for us. He first dried up business opportunities, removed the grace for running the biz among other "loud" things - then He just kept placing people, information, opportunities, and this wacky desire before us... intrigued, we began to follow the trail. Now, we didn't know a soul in this little sunkissed valley, and had never even heard of Grants Pass, population 24K. Part of the investigation involved a lead from a forum participant to seek the answer to a question I had posted from the owner of a different website in Grants Pass. The site is called http://www.ilovegrantspass.com/ This began a most fascinating series of communications. People were open, generous, willing to share their knowledge and their leads, encouraging, friendly.... after being completely taken with this response, I posted that we had decided to make a trip out there, and before long we had dinner plans with these people, plans to meet some folks at the Saturday Artesian and Growers market, an invitation to church, sightseeing suggestions, river rafting suggestions..... We booked a week-long trip out there, to listen to see if our hearts cried "home". Our arrival there began a roller-coaster series of flip-flops of what our hearts were saying - one day we believed it was home, the next day it was not nearly worth leaving those we love, the next day we met a bunch of people that felt like we'd known them forever, the day after we were homesick... This began to drive us NUTS, so as we were striving to hear - straining to make sense out of the static, we gave up. We needed fellowship with the Lord just because we love fellowship with the Lord - we knew if we took a day and sunk ourselves into the Word, none of this would matter any more. So, backpacks loaded with Bible, journal, water, snacks and a towel, we headed for the river. While scouting our location, we spied a lady walking two gorgeous dogs. You know what dog magnets we are, she veered in our direciton, we veered in hers... shared stories, before long we are following this stranger to her home so she could get us some information, more conversation, and we end up with a lead into a job opening that Jake was pursuing. This woman was the wife of a high-level manager for this company, requested his resume, and by the next morning, the phone was ringing to set up an "informal meeting", which resulted in Jake meeting with a few people, including the CEO. They even adjusted the time of the meeting because the night before, at a dinner in which we met over 30 people from this forum, we had made plans to go river rafting with the person who had organized it - the first appointment time had us half-way down the Rogue River... inconvenient at best. So... clear across the country, within a timeframe so specific that 5 minutes in either direction would have prevented the encounter, the paths of two families intersect, which results in access to the very information we were straining to hear in the static. Hmmmm, what's the rest of Matthew 6:33? Its even better if I start back a 6:25: Jesus is saying: "For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body , as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into bards, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies ofthe field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

So the rest of the story - we are in a holding pattern, waiting on the Lord, with our faith built up in a huge way by having seen how easy it is for God to bring about what our best striving and straining failed to "do". :) How awesome is our God! We'd love to move to Grants Pass - but more than that we love the high adventure of keeping our eye on the Lord as He throws our entire lives into upheaval, and being constantly amazed at what He does!! The center of His will is "where it's at" - - wherever "that" is!!!