Who is our source?

As I am down here in Ecuador currently, the recurring theme of the trip is the importance of viewing God as the source and relying on Him vs. settling or taking things into our own hands. In reality, I think this is the source of all sorts of sin issues. If we view ourselves or others as the source, we will have to control, manipulate, take, become a workaholic, or whatever to get what we want accomplished. The reality is that we need to view God as our souce and view people as people to love. With viewing God as our source, that does not mean we do nothing. No, we steward and do the best as He enables us to. But ultimately there is peace because we are in His hands. It is very easy to not depend on God. Especially, when things do not happen the way that we think they should or on our own timetable. But the reality is that, God is faithful... even when His faithfulness does not look like how we think it should look or if there is some purification of our lives that happen while waiting on the Lord. In reality, often when we think we are waiting on Him, He is often waiting on us.

We also need to be prepared for answers to come in ways that we do not expect. It is not that either the prayer will get answered exactly as we envision or that it won't. Often there is a third way.

We also need to continue to submit ourselves to God, and plead with Him to change anything that is not of Him as we wait. Romans 12:1 calls this presenting ourselves as living sacrifices. Often, God slowly transforms us which brings out the answer to prayer that we were originally asking for.