Delores and I always wanted to serve as missionaries. We planned on going to the mission field early in our career, but that didn’t work out. So, after pastoring eighteen years, we decided to move to Singapore, Southeast Asia. On the other hand, the missions department had earlier turned down our application to serve as missionaries because of my legal blindness. Well, we decided that we had to go to the mission field because we were in our early 40’s. We couldn’t wait any longer.
We left a church we had pastored for fifteen years and had prospered a lot. We went to zero income and moved to northwest Houston intending to
start raising funds for life overseas. Things were alright for about two weeks. Then, about 1 or 2 a.m. I woke up absolutely frightened. “How are you going to survive with zero income?” I couldn’t sleep so went to our living room, sat down on the couch and tried to get myself under control. Nothing worked-I felt really frightened! Suddenly, the Lord rescued me by asking me a question: “Are you going to live by My promises or your explanations?” I realized what I was doing. I was choosing to trust my three-pound brain rather than God’s infinite abilities. I looked up at the ceiling of that little apartment and said, “God, I’m going to live by your promises and not my explanations.” Immediately, instantaneously complete peace flooded my thoughts and my emotions. I returned to bed and slept the rest of the night. Well, the rest is history.
The missions department accepted us as missionaries and God blessed our fund-raising exceedingly well. Before we left for southeast Asia, the missions department was asking us to share some of our funds with missionaries who were struggling to raise their budgets.
Dear friends, you can trust God’s promises although you cannot explain them. How do you expect to match your three-pound brain with God’s infinitude? You can’t! Quite trying and start trusting and God will do better than the best for you.
Be greatly encouraged,
Pastor James Fields
Pastor Fields….I had just been saved a few months when you left to pursue your dreams of being a missionary. You and sister Dolores made such an impact on my life that it’s now been 30 years since I accepted the Lord JesusChrist as my personal Lord and Savior. What a wonderful decision that was.