Twenty Years of God's Faithfulness: A Leap of Faith

What does it mean to live by faith? To truly rely on God, instead of yourself, for your daily needs? Are His promises really true? When God called Jon and Natalie Wood to start Jesus for Asia 20 years ago, this is what they had to learn. 

I (Hannah) interviewed* Jon and Natalie to learn about their experience.

Hannah:
What was it like to transition from a regular job with a regular paycheck to living by faith?

Jon: 
I remember it all very clearly. When I turned in my resignation in March, we had a settled peace and conviction that this is what God wanted us to do. But between March and our last paycheck in June, it was extremely stressful to the point of being painful. I had peace, but at the same time, I kept asking myself, is God really going to provide? 

I believed He would, but day after day, the questions and worries came up again. I stressed about putting my wife and my two kids in a position where if it didn't work out, I’d have to watch my family suffer. I was in a constant battle against my fears and worries. 

Our income at the college wasn't that big, but it was steady. We didn't have to worry about it. And so we knew the time was coming when we wouldn’t have that anymore. Moving the faith from an institution to the unseen, from people to God, was a really hard thing for me. 

I once told someone at church, "Man, I'm really stressing out. I don't mind suffering for the cause, but I don't want to see my kids suffer and my wife suffer. It's not fair to them.”

He said, "You don't think God loves your kids and your wife? He loves them way more than you do. You don't think He'll take care of them?” And all of a sudden, [my mindset] switched. I didn’t see them as liabilities, but insurance. God may not love me, I thought, but He definitely loves them, so He’ll support them. 

We planned to move to Idaho, but we didn't know where we were going to live. We figured we'd move into my mom and dad's guest bedrooms until the Lord opened up some housing. The market was super expensive. But we believed that if He was calling us, He'd provide. Two weeks after we turned in the resignation, we received a call from my sister, who had built a house on the same property my parents were on. We thought she was going to be there until Jesus came, but she said, "I feel called to move to Montana to work with a ministry there.” So she moved out in June 2005, and two weeks later, we moved into her house. 

I talked to my sister later, and we figured out the same evening that we were feeling the impression to sign the resignation letter, she was feeling impressed to move to Montana. So, that was a really confirming miracle for us that God was in this.

After we were up there in Idaho, I thought, “Okay, now we're out here. I have to do good so that the Lord will support us; I don't want to mess up this job.” One day, I was out walking and asking God about that, and I got a really strong word from the Lord: “Even if you never win another soul, I love you so much that I will take care of you.”

A lot of learning and growth took place, especially in that first year. Faith is a great concept. Stepping out on faith is really hard, so that's why very few people actually do it.

Natalie: 
Faith isn’t faith until everything depends on it. 

Jon:
That's a sticker on Danny Shelton's old house (the founder of 3ABN). 

Deciding to work for God and getting ready to launch was like a midlife crisis. It wasn't like, “What's the meaning of my life?” But it was like I woke up one day at nearly 40 years old, and I started to realize that doing something important takes time. “You don't have a lot of time left,” I told myself.” If you're going to make a difference, if you're going to start something new, now's the time. This is your last chance.” 

I figured I'm turning 40; 20 years from now, I'll be 60, and 60-year-old people are just completely old. (Today I'm 61). But I knew that it was now or never, so I spent a lot of time praying and absolutely making sure that this was what He wanted us to do. 

Natalie: 
Well, that's part of the thing. You got to a point where, for you, it was now or never, but yet, for all of us, we need to be doing this now because time is so short. That's one thing we've tried to share over the years: the urgency to get involved now because if you wait, you might miss the opportunity. If you refuse, God will keep calling, and He will keep asking, bringing you around to it again until you either say yes or grieve away the Holy Spirit long enough.. 

Jon:
Yeah. I had to weigh the risks a lot. Some people wouldn't think so, but I'm a very risk-averse person. I grew up snow skiing and never crashed. I didn't like to crash. I knew what I could do, and I'd stay within that envelope, push it a little bit, but never to the point where I crashed. It was the same thing here. It's why it took me four years of processing in my mind to get to the point of actually stepping out by faith. The whole time, I was thinking about it, but I would move really slowly. 

But in the process of getting ready to launch, I had to do a value assessment. What's important to me, what's important in the long term, in eternity? What's important to God? What's God's will for my life? As I analyzed these questions, I realized that if l lined my values up with God's values, then we’d be blessed.

What are God's values? He values the one thing He doesn’t have – souls. What's His will? His will is that no one should perish. That is 100% established, and nobody's going to argue that. So, you have that as an absolute basis of knowing His will. If you align your life with that, then you have a much higher chance of being in His will. 

Seeing God work over the last 20 years has really grown our faith. And we have, you know, we don't just have good Bible theology about God's faithfulness anymore. We’ve seen it, we have stories. Some people have much better stories than we do. Some people have taken much larger risks than we have. But at least we've done a little bit, so we're thankful for that. 

Hannah: 
What have you learned about God since you've decided to take that step?

Natalie: 
I think the main thing is knowing and witnessing His faithfulness and that He is the one who upholds you in the journey. So His grace is truly sufficient. 

Jon: 
Same here. To me, it’s getting to know the power of His Word. When we first started out, we said we were camping on Matthew 6:33. And 20 years later, we're still camping on Matthew 6:33. And we can say without a shadow of a doubt that His Word is true. He loves it when people take a risk. Proactive faith is putting yourself in places that God's word calls you to. It's risky, and you could fail, but going into those places is where God shines.

And learning of God’s abiding presence amidst the fears, and what you can do in and with His Word, I would never go back. I love being 61 years old because now I know God, and I wouldn't trade that for being 20 again in a million years. If I could take what I know back to when I was 20, that'd be fine, but I would never give up knowing God like this for anything. 

We will be having a special 20th Anniversary commemoration on June 21at the Jesus for Asia headquarters where we will be sharing more testimonies of God’s faithfulness and how He has grown His work in Asia over these last 20 years. We invite you to join us for this special free event. Please visit Jesus4asia.org/events for more information.

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