Chapter 61
Jim shares…
I had come from a prominent family on the gulf Coast, and I knew that if I had desired to give up and return to the coast, I could have, but I wanted to see what god meant when He intimated to me as we departed from the Coast that I belonged to Him. Our lives were being directed and guided according to god’s loving hands and tender mercies. We had been rescued by Jim and Bonnie’s love, and for that we will be forever grateful. It was still very hard on Janie and me, because we were not accustomed to being so totally dependent upon others, yet God kept confirming each step along the way. I simply could not make sense of all that was transpiring. We were continually searching to discover god’s purpose for this trip.
One morning at Bonnie’s, while I was standing in my camper, I heard the words, “if you have faith, you can make it all the way to the end.” When I say, “I heard the words,” they were in the form of a thought, just suddenly in my mind. A pure thought! This word presented various meanings to me as I began meditating upon it; however, it served as an indication that there was more of the same ahead for us. it denoted that I was in a season with the Lord; He was doing something, and the episode was not yet over.
God works in our lives in time frames that I refer to as seasons. During each season of our walk with Him, He is working through a life lesson to develop a specific part of our character. He is a “parent” training up His child. The problem is that we do not know how long the season is going to last; only god knows that. 
Character development is a foundational requirement for the purpose of our life on this Earth. Once He has accomplished developing our character, the call or ministry of our life blossoms forth. God has a perfect plan for our entire life if we can simply learn to trust Him and allow Him to accomplish His purpose. He knows everything about us, all the hurts and pains, disappointments and abuses; but even with all of the bad things, He can still bring forth a beautiful ending if we let Him.
Our Heavenly Father is intimately involved in our lives more than we realize. I recall a morning while writing this book. I dozed for a moment, and my head nodded forward. At that moment I heard distinctly the words, “I knew you would have a tear in your eye before the end of the day.” My head jerked back up as I started thinking about what I had just heard. The Word was interesting, so I recorded it in my journal. As my daily work routine took place, I forgot about the early morning occurrence. early that evening Janie and I were home, and we started discussing some of the difficult things we had been through in our walk with the Lord, especially our being homeless. For a small moment my eyes teared up. The reminiscing moment ended, and we returned to what each had been doing prior to our discussion. A few minutes later I headed to the kitchen to get a glass of water. suddenly I remembered my early morning entry, and promptly went to look it up in my journal. I sat in total amazement at how god spoke in the past tense about something that was to occur in my future! god had said, “I ‘knew’ that you would have a tear in your eye before the end of the day.” As I meditated on this event I realized that there is nothing that god does not know about our lives. He knows what we are going to do, how we are going to react to things—he knows everything; nothing is hidden. I was in total awe at the intimacy god was displaying. He is closer to us than we realize! What must wedo to discover this intimacy with God? We must keep our eyes on
our Lord! We must turn our hearts to Him in sincerity, read His Word, pray, and expect Him to respond to our prayers.
I illustrate this point through the following story. A year or two before leaving the Mississippi Coast, Janie was in the back yard with her brood of five kids, letting them play in a small plastic swimming pool. The kids were in and out of the pool, playing with balls and toys when Caleb, our youngest, happened to throw his ball into the garden. We had a nice size rose bush next to the steps, and Caleb, not knowing better, went into the garden to retrieve the ball. Within a short moment he became entangled in the rose bush’s thorns. He froze and would not move or so much as speak because of his predicament. He had his eyes glued on Janie and was screaming to her through his starring look, pleading with her to turn around to see him and rescue him. As I watched the sequence take place, and Janie rescue him, I said, “That’s the way we should have our eyes on our Lord.” Whenever we get into a difficult struggle in life, and all of the times in between, we should have our eyes focused on our Lord; and yes, we will be able to discover the intimacy with which God loves us. We are all little children before Him, and it doesn’t matter how old we are, we are still His little children.