The Produce of Canaan

 

As many know, we are anxiously awaiting our signed legals for our kids in order to move to the next step in our adoption. We have continually requested prayer from those close to us in order to get the good news that legals have been signed and sent. I have been posting at night on our fb adoption page, asking for prayer for the upcoming day in Manila. 

Thursday in the Philippines passed with no progress. I did, however, get an email from our agency that multiple people have contacted those with the power and they have said it will be done tomorrow (which is tonight for us). My case worker urged in her email that we continue fervent prayers that it comes tonight, which would mean we could send the I800 off tomorrow. THEN our prayers will turn toward USCIS (United States Customs and Immigration Services) for an immediate approval of that. But that's another request for another day. 😊 

I haven't yet fully sorted out what this means, but this morning in my Bible reading, I decided to read the book of Joshua. This verse jumped out at me: 

Joshua 5:12 The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan.

This entire process has been full of manna. God has provided time and again, in ways you can't even begin to comprehend without hearing the entire story. We are SO CLOSE, so close, to the fruit of our Promise, the "produce of Canaan". I did some research after that on Canaan and what the conquest of Canaan meant. John Piper has a whole post where he talks about it and one point that he made is that "there will be no conquest without obedience. God will not fight for a people who are fighting against him. In order to succeed, Joshua and the people must be courageous in God and obey his commandments." He follows it up with explaining that, at the success of the conquest, the Israelites couldn't boast about it and point to their own righteousness because it was a promise from God made generations before to Abraham and they just had to be obedient to Him. We did one thing correctly in this entire process: We said yes. After that, every single step of the way, it was God pointing out the right paths, making decisions, putting the words in our mouth like He promised Moses with Pharoh (or in our case, putting words in our email responses to ICAB). God led us to the right adoption agency, He granted us favor and speed with the various organizations we had to work with to get the paperwork done, He provided the finances. 

He didn't do all of this to get us here and take away the manna without the produce of Canaan. I KNOW this will all happen in time. Our son will be approved before his birthday and we will bring three children home. And I believe we will bring them home in MARCH, too. 

Thank you for being here with us, holding up our arms when we needed it.