The Story

"Behold, his souls which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith." Habakkuk 2:4 (KJV)

There I was on Jamaican soil -- January 17, 1998. I could hardly believe that it had finally happened, but it had and I was there. Alongside were my three foster children that I adopted in the US to bring with me and start a new life -- a life in a country foreign to us.

I did not have one doubt at that moment that this was in God's perfect will for my life. My church family back in the States had given me a prayer/send off service in which the pastor's words were firmly planted in my heart. He prayed that God would be with me for all the problems I would have to face, and which at that point I couldn't even imagine. I remember when he prayed I wondered what could be so unexpected that God and I couldn't go through together with Him at the helm. I didn't know then that his prayers would be prophetic. My pastor and his wife had spent many years in Africa as missionaries and they had a knowledge about the difficulties that can arise.

Throughout the first year I would experience some of the many things of which he spoke, but God always brought good things out of even the worst circumstances, and in everything His glory was magnified.

I see now that my attitude is what matters most, and I praise God for a deep truth. He showed me years earlier, that my life lived for Christ is not lived so that I can be happy or satisfied, but so I can be used to bring Him glory and honor. I knew that I had been born to confound the wise and felt in good company with so many that had gone on before, as Paul tells us in I Corinthians 1:26-31.

"Notice among yourselves, dear brothers, that few of you who follow Christ have big names or power or wealth. Instead, God has deliberately chosen to use ideas the world considers foolish and of little worth in order to shame those people considered by the world as wise and great. He has chosen a plan despised by the world, counted as nothing at all, and used it to bring down to nothing those the world considers great, so that no one anywhere can ever brag in the presence of God. For it is from God alone that you have your life through Christ Jesus. He showed us God's plan of salvation; he was the one who made us acceptable to God; he made us pure and holy and gave himself to purchase our salvation. As it says in the Scriptures, 'If anyone is going to boast, let him boast only of what the Lord has done.'" (TLB)

Michelle Robinette