How shall I know this?

"And Zechariah said to the angel, 'How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.'" (Luke 1:18 ESV)

"They take a narrow and disparaging view of the works of God, who believe that He will do no more than nature holds out to be probable, as His hand were limited to our senses or confined to earthly means. But it belongs to FAITH to believe that more can be done than carnal reason admits." John Calvin

As a new year begins, this is exactly the challenge that God has levelled to me: Will my faith waver and will doubt crush my confidence in Him when I cannot reason through the MEANS that He will use to complete His purposes? Will I trust in God when reason and nature fails, seeing that He is the author of and stands above both reason AND nature? "How shall I know this?" For we have no savings and do not make enough money to cover the cost of adoption over and above our monthly expenses. So goes my unbelief.

But God!

God has taken the last 4 months to dash to pieces any pretense of provision that I may have imagined that was not based in faith. We needed $6000 in 4 months to pay our agency fees - God provided nearly $7000! And He did it with nickles and dimes, with widows mites and coin jars - not the big flashy grants that we expected were going to be the foundation of our adoption funding. He did it the way He wanted to do it, not the way we thought it should or could be done. He turned our expectations on thier heads - and He taught us something about ourselves and about faith.

Calvin later goes on to point out that while Zechariah is struck dumb as a result of his unbelief, God does not withhold His promise. He fulfills the purpose in spite of the unbelief of the recipient of the promise. This is our gracious God. I am certain that the love that Zechariah had for his God was deepened by his experience of grace. I know this because that is how I have been affected by grace.

We have not been visited by the angel Gabriel who stands in the presence of God. But we have been visited by a conviction that God has equipped us with love and patience and a comfortable home - and a conviction that there are too many orphans in the world to let the rich resources of an affluent culture be squandered on leisure and inactivity. The directive to spend and be spent for the sake of the gospel daily rings in our ears. God's word has spoken clearly that caring for "the least of these" equals caring for Christ, and these blessings have been provided as a means to do so. So we trust that beyond reason and nature God will continue to provide what we need to rescue and nurture these little ones who are in need.