We’ve been pointing CONSTANTjourney readers to our support raising efforts in a couple of places (link, link, link, link) recently (and a couple of offline places as well) and so we wanted to make sure we’re giving you updates on our progress so far. We currently have a remaining need of $913 in monthly support. That means that since our initial efforts began, people have partnered with us in additional ways, to the tune of about $200 a month. And we are humbled.

We have this confidence that it’s going to work out, that Canvas will have the resources it needs to continue the amazing efforts that have already begun in B’ham. We’ve come so far, we have no reason to worry about this at all.

But then I recall all you have done, O Lord; I remember your wonderful deeds of long ago. They are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about your mighty works. O God, your ways are holy. Is there any god as mighty as you? (Psalm 77:11-13 NLT)

But it will take some effort and hard work to communicate the passion we have for the work we’re a part of. And it will take faithful people, merging their life’s journey with this one, stepping up and saying that they believe in what they see God doing here. It might even take you. We’ve just got to keep asking.

If you feel that this journey, this CONSTANTjourney is something you’d like to be a part of, then please take a moment to let us know: Click here to let us know you want to commit support in some way, financial, encouragement, or anything else. Here are a few more links that might help you along your way:

• Our current support status
• Ways you can join the journey
• Contact us with your questions
• Then after you become a CONSTANTjourney supporter, you will receive a username and password to login and see some great supporter-only stuff.

However you want to join with this journey, one thing is for sure: you can pray. We are so blessed to know that people care. That they want to see Canvas succeed. That they want to see students cared for - really cared for and loved so that they might ask us why we love them so much.

Thank you for being a part of this journey. If you’re not yet a part of the support base, please consider it. If you are, we continue to be in awe of your faithfulness to make this happen. We cannot say thank you enough.

I’ve recent gotten a first book of English landscape photography printed featuring various locations throughout England. And, Hey! says I. What if I made them available for purchase as a way to support our work? For the sake of thinking it through, it could work this way:

• We could place a link to an online store throughout CONSTANTjourney.com that allows a visitor to click through and purchase the book with a credit card, check or directly from their bank account (via Paypal).
• Once the visitor has gone through the simple steps of purchasing a book, we order one on their behalf and it ships directly to their home.

Easy, huh? What do you think? Please let us know, it will really help us. Take a second to vote on this poll: [polldaddy poll="808503"]

Thanks for your feedback! Stay tuned; we’ll see how this goes once we get some opinions on the matter

As Leah and I are in the trenches with our current issue of support, my wife has done it again. She has found a way to remind us both that we are with God and he is for us. She forwarded this to me a few days ago from a daily email she receives called “My Utmost for His Highest.”

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Matthew 7:7-11 (NIV)

Jesus is laying down rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit. By the simple argument of these verses He urges us to keep our minds filled with the notion of God’s control behind every thing, which means that the disciple must maintain an attitude of perfect trust and an eagerness to ask and to seek.

Notion your mind with the idea that God is there. If once the mind is notioned along that line, then when you are in difficulties it is as easy as breathing to remember - Why, my Father knows all about it! It is not an effort, it comes naturally when perplexities press. Before, you used to go to this person and that, but now the notion of the Divine control is forming so powerfully in you that you go to God about it. Jesus is laying down the rules of conduct for those who have His Spirit, and it works on this principle - God is my Father, He loves me, I shall never think of anything He will forget, why should I worry?

There are times, says Jesus, when God cannot lift the darkness from you, but trust Him. God will appear like an unkind friend, but He is not; He will appear like an unnatural Father, but He is not; He will appear like an unjust judge, but He is not. Keep the notion of the mind of God behind all things strong and growing. Nothing happens in any particular unless God’s will is behind it, therefore you can rest in perfect confidence in Him. Prayer is not only asking, but an attitude of mind which produces the atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural. “Ask, and it shall be given you.”