Change is upon us, whether we like it or not: kids grow up, parents age, our boss leaves, new laws are made. The list of changes facing us each day in our personal and professional lives can be endless, especially with the economic uncertainty at play in our nation.
And we can either love change and embrace it, or we can try and bury our head in the snow and ignore it.
As we start 2018, here is hoping we have the courage, tenacity and perseverance to face the changes head on.
“May you find Him by your side in 2018.”
For David and I, this year marks a very special anniversary in our lives, and a decade of adapting to change. Change in careers, in financial perspective, in housing, in family (with the arrival of our youngest and fifth child in 2011), and in church, have kept us searching for God in our daily lives, and have kept us clinging to Him for love, assurance, forgiveness and guidance as the years go on.
After leaving a family business 10 years ago, David started working with financial coach and mortgage specialist Lynn Fraser to create a financial coaching system that would help hundreds of people pay off over six million dollars in debt. They called the coaching system More Than Enough, and used a puzzle with a missing puzzle piece as its logo. Three years ago, as Lynn headed off on new adventures, David and I took over the business.
Over this decade, the More Than Enough coaching system has evolved and changed, and evolved and changed again. Today, it is part of a four-fold business that not only involves financial coaching but helps people with tax and mortgage needs, as well as education and training, all with the purpose of seeing people unleashed into debt-free living, where they find the hope and freedom to pursue their God-given purposes. Coaching is the current that runs through all we do.
One Thing We Know
After reflecting upon the last decade, we are amazed at where we have come with Christ. We have failures and successes, but one truth holds us steadfast, and it is a truth that carries us into a new decade at More than Enough, and into the new year ahead: God is for us.
In the Old Testament story of Israel’s journey into the land God promised Abraham, we read of Moses’ last words to Joshua and the Israelites. Moses knew he wasn’t going into the land, and that God had chosen a new leader for the people. Change was upon them after 40 years of wandering in the desert, and Moses needed to remind them of God’s truth before he departed.
“The Lord your God Himself crosses over before you,” he told them. “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them (the enemy); for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:3-6)
Then he turns to Joshua and tells him the same thing: “Be strong and of good courage, for you must go with this people to the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed.” (Deuteronomy 31:7,8)
“He will not leave you nor forsake you.”
That sounds a lot like Jesus at the end of the book of Matthew. He was leaving instructions before he left earth, just as Moses had.
“All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
“I am with you always.”
These same words, spoken hundreds and hundreds of years ago, are the same words ringing out to us in 2018.
“I am with you always. Don’t be afraid. I will not leave you, nor will I forsake you.”
Israel faced immense changes. God reassured them.
The disciples faced immense changes. Jesus reassured them.
We are facing changes – whether small or immense. His Spirit reminds us of the truth and reassures us.
No matter what we are dealing with as the year begins, our comfort is in His Presence, and in His promise to stay with us. God is for us. No matter what we have done, no matter how we have failed financially, He is eager to walk with us and help us. God is for us.
In all of this pondering I am reminded of the words in Brian Doerksen’s new song called “If Jesus is the Face of God” :
“If Jesus is the Face of God,
then we have seen the Face of Love.
And looking in the Face of Love we know that God believes in us.”
If He didn’t believe in us, or if He wasn’t for us, then He would never have come in the form of man to rescue us. All praise to God for making a way so we would not be left alone.
May you find Him by your side in 2018.
Rebecca van Noppen is Communications Director at More Than Enough. She is also a teacher, home educator, writer, and woman who loves to pray. She works alongside her husband, Financial Coach David van Noppen, to help others find hope and freedom in Christ on their financial journeys.