Beyond Ourselves: Ryan and Brenda Saul
I once heard someone explain that during our Christian life we are often looking for a mountain top experience with God, but where we bear fruit is down in the valley. My husband and I spent some time in that Valley. Being that he is self -employed his paycheck (when there is one) is based purely on commission. At the beginning of our marriage, when he first took this job, there were almost no paychecks for about 2 years. While that was hard, and not what we were hoping for, we began to really seek out God and start to look for His will in things.
We have been involved in the Beyond Campaign for the past few months, but it wasn’t until the last couple weeks that we have felt sure about what God’s call for us was. One evening after a meeting Ryan and I had a quick conversation that amounted to us each giving a number that we thought we would give. We both had the same idea in mind, so that seemed liked God’s hand in it right there and it was a done deal. That was easy.
While attending a couple more meetings regarding the campaign we started to hear other people’s stories as to what they were giving, why they were giving it, and how they got to that conclusion. We left a meeting, got in the car and both felt like we needed to rethink what we were giving. We were hearing really moving stories about great sacrifice that was changing people’s lives. What would that look like for us.
Since those first few rough years, through God’s grace, he has blessed us more that we would have ever thought to ask for. He has brought us to that mountaintop and met us there. We feel really humbled by it and have resolved to try to use these blessings in the way that He would want us to….but we want to be comfortable while doing it. Because Ryan’s job is not a steady income and can have many highs and lows we have made it a goal to always have a year’s income saved to anticipate a bad year. That one year safety net grew to wanting two years worth saved and so on. Turns out, for my worry oriented husband, there is not dollar amount that will give him complete security.
So, we reevaluated what we should give to be in a position that we are trusting in God again. The first amount we had was an amount that would have felt like we were making a difference towards the church, but it wouldn’t have changed us. We doubled that amount. We are choosing to let go of some of our control and security and live life seeing what God will provide. He taught us so much the last time that he met us in that valley that this time, hand in hand with my husband, we are choosing to come down off that mountaintop and walk back into that valley. This time, because we know and trust God’s greatness, it isn’t scary, it is just so exciting and we can’t wait to tell people what we find there.