If you read my blogs on obedience (Part 1 HERE & Part 2 HERE), then you know that I recently faced, what I thought was, a pretty bleak financial situation. By human standards, there was absolutely nothing I could do to correct it, I thought it was absolutely hopeless. Initially, I only looked at it by human standards, although I did try to put a God spin on it that helped me reason in a completely messed up an illogical way that God was letting me skip out on my tithe. But there in lies the problem...I thought it was hopeless.
Hopeless??? With everything that has happened over the past 8 months, hope has been in short supply. But, recently I have depended heavily on a hope that I never did before. I've written blogs about obedience, faith, and trust (all to our Lord, of course). I began to really develop this deep hope that I would experience God in absolutely every aspect of my life. I've even repeatedly asked God for that . Funny thing is, one of the only parts of my life that I NEVER wanted or planned to let God into was my finances. With that said, not that I am an idiot when it comes to knowing the right thing to do with my finances, but I was never very active in trying to maintain healthy finances.
Anyway, rather illogically, I had always believed I could manage my finances better than God. I never tested him like Malachi 3:10 says to and I never planned to, until back in February. For the record, I can't manage my finances better than God. That concept ended in failure back in November, only a couple months after my wife left. So, I have been writing all this stuff about obedience and praying to experience God in every part of my life, then when I'm given the perfect opportunity to have both, I almost blew it.
God knows that I had never experienced faith and trust in him with my finances and also knows that I so badly want to be obedient. God gave me the opportunity at the beginning of the month to trust, test and be obedient to Him by giving my tithe. At a time when it seemed impossible to pay this unexpected (rather large) bill and provide for my son's birthday, He asked me to continue to be obedient and trust Him and I couldn't see it.
Luckily He put people in my life that love me enough to hold me accountable and people in my life (some that have known me a little longer than others) that care about me enough to offer whatever help they could. Because of those people, God has made it more than clear that I'm very blessed. I feel that it is often more than I deserve, but somehow I'm that important to Him. Somehow, through all my failures and everything I've done, He loves me that much.
I WAS obedient to Him and He took care of EVERYTHING!!!! He provided a way to pay the unexpected bill and take care of Andrew's birthday (and there was some left over). I'm speechless. The coolest part is, it didn't matter to Him that I thought about not being (and really had already decided not to be) obedient. He didn't withhold His blessing and favor, "to teach me a lesson" not to doubt Him. Instead, because I was obedient, He poured out His blessing and favor to prove His love and that His word STILL applies today. The other cool thing is He doesn't just love me that much or offer that blessing just to me. He does it for EVERY single one of us.
Whether you believe it or not (I didn't use to believe it), there was NO, and I mean NO, way that I should have had the money to pay that bill or get Andrew presents by Tuesday evening. But I gave my tithe on Monday morning and by Tuesday afternoon He took care of all of it. There is only one explanation: GOD!
Experiencing Christ,
Bruce
No comments:
Post a Comment