God is God by Cara Franco

WHO AM I…I AM HIS!

Isn’t it amazing how we can trust God in our situation today and forget about Him tomorrow? How we remember Him in some things and others He is furthest from our minds! Yet He tells us continually to acknowledge Him in all our ways, and He will direct our paths (Proverbs 3:6). Wouldn’t life be more hassle free with someone else directing the way? Think of a holiday tour; you go where they take you, where they lead you, they organize it all you just have to pitch up. And of course there is free time where you can do as you please. Well that’s how life should be if we trust and acknowledge God in all our ways, we wouldn’t have the stress we allow ourselves to carry or the issues we get ourselves into. Not saying life would be a bed of roses but it sure would be easier than we make it. Stephen Curtis Chapman once wrote a great song:

“God is God and I am not, I can only see a part of the picture He’s painting.”

So if we truly walked in that, no bed of roses, but pure bliss I tell you. This is my story…

In the year 2000, God spoke to me and told me to go to the U.K. I didn’t know where or how but when, I did know – March of 2001. At the time I was working for a corporate company, in the church worship team, living and being content in life. When God told me to go, it was not to work, although I planned my way and got a working/holiday visa. I had not saved up any money as my salary paid my car and you know our day to day needs… shopping, movies, girls night out, hehe.

I kept telling my family in March next year I will be going to the U.K with not much support, as at the time so many young people would leave school and venture off to England to ‘find themselves’. I didn’t have to do that, God had found me, but yet the opposition stood against me. So I asked the Lord, “If this is your will, my parents will be in agreement.”

I resigned at the beginning of January 2001 and 2 weeks before the 5th March, a friend called asking if I’d gotten my ticket yet. I must say the nerves of not knowing had almost gotten the better of me and I was hesitant, but I did research and when I got to the travel agent they said I received the last available seat on that flight, for a great price! I still had no idea where I was going but I knew to trust the Lord.

That Sunday a young lady whom I hardly knew at the time, came and asked me, “So I hear you going to England, where will you be staying?”

In which my response was a clear, “I dunno!”

From there God made a way, she was going to stay with a friend of hers for 3 days, so that was the start of my amazing journey.

My 3 days turned into 3 months at this friend’s house in Bristol. It became my home from home and God allowed me to minister in churches, and into people’s lives, what a blessing! And He in turn ministered into my life where I’d been holding onto past baggage etc. So being in a country where I had no close friends or family I could talk to, God became the best friend He should be in all our lives, and I became whole! I then traveled around the U.K to Scotland, York, Harrogate, Stratford-upon-Avon, Manchester, Leeds, Cambridge etc. etc. etc. and God opened the doors everywhere I went. I did not stay in hostels but the homes of the most beautiful people I had met or met along the journey. The amazing thing of it all was that I was not working but God was providing all the way.

Ok back to the – well almost beginning – the day I left on my plane, someone I’d just met and maybe spoken to 4 times gave me 400 pounds cash, which was equivalent to R6000. At the time the pound to rand was between 15 and 17 to 1! Why England? Because at that time it was the most expensive place in exchange for our Rands and God was trying to teach me to trust Him and stretch me, big time!

So that money lasted my first 5 weeks and then I was like, “Ok Lord, what now?” The amazing thing was, wherever I stayed I never paid a cent. At times I would feel like I needed to, but the Lord had opened the doors for me and many times the people blessed me with even more than just a roof over my head, they were all amazing. Let me continue…

I would go to church on the Sunday and God said, “Cara, put 10 pounds in the offering.”

In my mind I would quickly calculate and be like, “Lord that’s like over R150.”

Which to you may not be much but at the time I was counting every penny, thinking “what if I run out of money? Then I’m stuck in a foreign place with no one I really know.”

But I would do as God said, sometimes with a struggle in my heart, other times I just did it no questions asked. After the service someone I’d never met would come up to me and tell me, “Sorry to bother but God told me to give you this.”

When I would open it, it was 100 pounds. This happened several times. I would put in 2 pounds and get 50 in return. I would put 5 and get 50 and so forth. One Sunday they announced that the team from Hillsong were coming to do a worship conference, the cost was 95 pounds. I really wanted to go, but was way over what I could afford, so I just left it. When the offering came by God told me to put in my 5 pounds, I did and left it at that. The lady I stayed with leant over to tell me she thought I should attend the conference in which I nodded, smiled and thought, “Uh huh. Way, way over what I can afford.”

But aren’t we funny? May be too much for us, but nothing is too big for our God. After the service someone came and gave me a cheque for 95 pounds. God again blew my mind! And so my months continued, everywhere I went God made the way and when I left someone would bless me with enough money for my next leg of the journey, unknown to them God was using them mightily!

I spent 6 weeks in Edinburgh, Scotland, with a friend I met once and had begun to email a few months back. There again God opened my eyes to His awesome wonders and provision in my life. He just always reminded me to trust Him! On my last Sunday there I was sitting in the church service and God said to me, “Cara, do you believe I can take an offering for you?”

I responded, “Lord I know you can BUT who am I? Offerings are taken for guest speakers/singers etc, not for nobody’s like me, I mean I’m just here visiting this friend.”

God said again, “Cara do you believe I can?”

It left me quiet in my Spirit pondering deeply on this. How much do I really trust My God? At the end of the service the Pastor called me up and told the church they would be praying a blessing over me as I left and traveled back to England. I was about to sit down and she said to the church, “The Lord has impressed on my heart we need to take an offering for this girl.”

Well that was me finished in tears, in disbelief, “Me Lord, who am I?”

I am God’s beloved child, that’s who I am, whom He cares for and loves, whom He makes a way for and opens doors no man can shut. He who only has the best in store for me, if I would just choose to trust Him!!! You see, this is not a prosperity message that we’ve all been given for years – give and God will bless. That’s not the principle here! It was being obedient to what God was requiring of me! It has nothing to do with money but with Gods provision and my reliance on Him, not on me. We are to be obedient to God no matter what the cost, ‘cos funny thing, we always think its such a great cost to us but when we step out the boat and trust Him, there was no cost at all and it’s the most awesome times of your life!

There were many more things that happened in this journey where God always just took my breath away. He is so faithful, so amazing and left me in awe always! We gotta know the God we serve. We gotta trust Him above all things and know when He says something He will do it, if we only had faith as a mustard seed (Mark 11:23-24)!

But that’s our problem in all things, not only when it comes to money, we don’t have the faith. But God is concerned in every detail of our lives. We just need to allow Him to be God and be the center of our lives, that every decision we make, He is at the center. The word says in Him we live and move and have our being. Yet as I said at the beginning, we have God on the sideline as a spectator using Him when we need, when He is a loving God desiring for us to commune with Him everyday, every moment, to trust Him and know He IS. So next time you find yourself trying to work it all out, let God be God and you will see HE does move mountains.

If we only believe!