I Didn’t Have The Answer, But I Did Have The Victory!

They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31

JoAnn was the only woman graduate in her Bible school.

“The leaders said to me, ‘We don’t know what we’re going to do with you—we do have this situation in Memphis. A church closed and we need you to go start a Sunday school. All we can offer you is eighty dollars a month.’ ”^a Once in Memphis she stayed with a pastor and his wife, who gave her room and board for forty dollars a month. She spent the other forty dollars on ministry. For six weeks she knocked on doors, cleaned the decaying church building, and cut the grass, but no one came.

“One day I sat on the piano stool and cried, ‘I don’t know what I am going to do. I can’t go home. I feel like you’ve called me, Lord, but I don’t know what to do.’ ”

Then a promise from Isaiah 40:30-31 came to her mind: “Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength” (NRSV).

Her hope returned. “I didn’t have people, but I had the victory!”

She began to see the neighborhood with new eyes. She saw that people were needy, and she felt that God wanted her to meet their needs. She felt that God was asking her, “Step in, and I’ll show you what I can do with five dollars.” She decided to go to the thrift shore and buy as much as she could with her five dollars. “I loaded up my car with clothes. I gave the kids things to wear—and they started to come to Sunday school!”

Can you see the victory in your life today?