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Our God and creator desires to have a personal relationship with his people.
In order to have a relationship, communication must be established. No matter where we are or what our circumstance is, we can talk to our creator. In his infinite wisdom, he chose to grant us the honor of participating in his works and gave us the gift of prayer as a way or communicating wiht him. Prayer is one of the ways we can discover where he is at work.
Another way he communicates with us is through the Bible, God's written word. Combining these two methods opens up two-way communication. We read what he wrote to each of us personally and respond back to him in conversation.
My work day at Love INC begins with reading the Bible and responding back to him through prayer with the other office staff. If we are going to join God in his work of the ministry of Love INC, as his agents or instruments, we need to communicate with him what it is we are to do.
Last month, we were given the opportunity to join forces with another community agency to meet the housing needs of a single mother and her 3-year-old son. Her needs were great, God-sized if you will. On this particular day we began our work as I have just described. The Bible verses that God used to speak to us were found in Matthew 14: 14-21.
Jesus had been speaking to a crowd of people and healing their sick. Evening approached and his disciples asked him to send the crowd of more than 5,000 away so they could go and get themselves some food.
Jesus responded, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat."
They answered, "We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish."
"Bring them here to me", Jesus said.
The disciples brought Jesus all the resource they had, the five loaves and two fish. He took the resource and blest it and gave it back to the disciples. The disciples then gave it to the multitude of people. After the people ate until they were full, the disciples gathered up 12 baskets of leftovers.
God had communicated to us throught this reading of his word that all he watned us to do was give him the resource we had, then communicate back to him that it was not enough to meet the need and we needed him to bless it and make it go further than normal. That is exactly what we did. That is exactly what he did.
He took a donated 10-by-16 foot building and turned it into a home for this family in need. A local building supply company donated building materials, three churches donated labor and a coffee shop supplied coffee for the laborers. Firewood was given for the wood stove. Monies were given to purchase a propane cook stove. Two local companies agreed to share the responsibility of providing and maintaining a port-a-potty for the winter. The electrical company set up a manageable plan to hook up electricity.
I will never forget how he provided the cook stove. I had been given $270 from two teen-agers from their permanent fund checks to purchase a propane cook stove. Where do you find a cook stove that uses propane and is small enough to fit into a 10-by-16 building? I hadn't a clue, so I asked God to show me. He led me to an appliance store. As I wated for the busy clerk to help me, another customer came in. We knew each other and out of politeness he asked me what I was up to and I explained the situation.
"Wow", he said.
Then I explained the situation to the clerk. She invited me to the back of the store where they just happened to have a beautiful, small four burner cook stove with an oven that someone had special ordered and didn't want. I asked the cost. $390 was the answer. I thought to myself, "OK< Lord, I need you to bless my resource."
When I asked the clerk if they could come down on the price she started punching numbers into her calculator. She looked up and sadly answered, "All I can do is knock off $50."
"That's great" I said. "We're getting close!"
That's when the fellow pulled out his checkbook and wrote a check for $100 -- "to cover the rest."
He then walked out of the store. I still don't know why he stopped in. If you did the math, you found there was a basketful of resource left over.
Why did God do this? My answer is God desires to have a personal relationship with his people. He invites them in his work to communicate our need and dependency on him to complete that work. Then we can testify of his greatness so that others will want to know him, He is the miracle worker.
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