Friday, August 24, 2007

I'm rich!

After Shawna arrived I knew things would be a little tight with daycare bills. On initial arrival daycare requires a tuition fee, plus the regular daycare fee. Weekly I was pouring money into daycare and it was taking it's toll.

I have savings built up, but for some reason God kept telling me not to touch it. So I left it there, and kept my eyes peeled for ways to not spend money, while God kept spending it! At church a women spoke about missions and God told me to give x amount of dollars specifically for her missions trip. I could of happily took out my bank register and showed Him that I didn't have the money, and reminded Him that HE was the one that told me not to touch my savings. But instead I wrote the check He'd told me to write and made do with simply shaking my head at the strangeness of the God I serve.
Then the next week, as I wrote out my tithes check, I ended up voiding the check and writing the new higher amount God told me to give. Again, shaking my head at God telling Him He was just nuts, but ok.

I prayed about the finances, wondering why He wouldn't let me move savings money over to checking account money. And I watched my bank account as I was certain overdraft fees would begin rolling in.

My bank register where I write down all expenditures seemed to constantly show a negative balance. Yet, my bank never showed a negative balance and never charged me for not having enough funds in the bank. I'm still in awe over that one.

I finally got to the point where I knew all my bills would be paid (I considered that, alone, to be a miracle without my savings being used). When just a few days ago someone came up to me and handed me money. It's one of those things that seems to happen to other people, and you never imagine it happening to you. They said they didn't know anything about my finances but God had told them to give me money.

I found myself thinking -maybe I'm just too pessimistic- that something was about to go wrong since my bills were already going to be paid... why would God suddenly be giving me money? What's about to happen that He's already providing the money for?

And then this morning on my way to work my car had a blow out. Shawna and I survived the exciting and wobbly ride, my brother was called in to put the spare on (I realize now, I own all the equipment to do the job myself - except for a jack... that's kind of important!) and I purchased a new tire with the money I'd been given earlier this week.



Can I just tell you God is good?


Last Sunday in church we were singing the song "Give Thanks" and the song says to let the weak say they are strong and the poor say they are rich. And as we sang that song something important came to me. I'm rich. Through God I'm rich.
I looked up the definition of "rich" and sure enough the first definition doesn't look like me:

1: having abundant possessions and especially material wealth

But the second definition caught my eye:

2 a: having high value or quality b: well supplied or endowed


It's not that I have a lot of money in the bank, but I have the money for every single necessity that comes along. I am well supplied. When I have no money, God provides enough to get me through. I will never not have enough money. (Keeping in mind, these rules don't apply if I go out and act financially irresponsible!)

I'm not rich for my own pleasures. But I am rich enough to do what I truly want to do. Which is: whatever He wants me to do. God's never failed to bless me with the niceties of life though. I've got enough. And I'm rich enough to tackle anything.

It's not about having big stuff. It's about doing big things. And when there are no big things around to do, it's about doing little things with all the delight and fervor as I would do the big things. Little things add up to big things. If you don't believe me, just ask my bank.

Update: My car still seemed to have issues so, upon checking, I discovered yet another tire that had a large lump going all the way around the tire. I had to replace that one as well and so totalling the new tires against the money God provided ealier in the week the difference between the two was $3.93. God knews exactly how much it was going to cost. If I had bought both tires at the same time He would have been $4.00 over. He just couldn't get any more perfect.

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