Throughout my life, I have seen God show Himself faithful over and over again. I saw it growing up in a pastor's home... God was always faithful to provide... faithful to heal... faithful to answer our prayers. Since Kelly and I have been married, we have experienced the same thing. Through the majority of our married life, we struggled financially and have really just begun to move forward in that in the last couple of years. Although we often wondered how everything was going to get paid, one way or another, God always brought us what we needed. We didn't have an abundance, but we always had enough to make it.
Kelly and I could tell you many stories... examples of how God made a way when we had no solution ourself. Well, yesterday He did it again! We witnessed a very cool instance of God showing off a little bit :). In just a few days, we have TWO kids that will have braces put on and one of them having 4 teeth pulled in the process as well. We need a certain amount of funds upfront to begin the process, and if you've ever paid for this type of work before, you know that doing it for two at one time is no small chunk of change. We had been planning and counting on being able to get a "bonus" from my web development business in time to help with this. As the time has come, Kelly and I were discussing just how much we needed to come up with and whether or not I was going to be able to make it happen or not. The last few weeks have been pretty good so I expected to be able to do SOME extra... just didn't know if I could do the larger amount that we really needed.
In my business, besides regular website projects, we develop other applications that people purchase to use in their own website development. That additional element of income for the business has become a real blessing as it generally brings in a fairly steady flow of income daily. I track this pretty seriously so I know how much money those sales generate from a day to day basis, monthly, etc. So, on to the cool part...
After Kelly and I discussed the specifics of our need and that we were pretty much out of time to come up with anything else, I went back to my office to determine what I could do. I prayed a simple prayer and said "God, you know exactly what we need right now and exactly how much. We really need you to help us make this happen." Within a few minutes, I was contacted by someone making an inquiry about our most expensive application package which is not something that is regularly sold. After a couple of emails back and forth, he made the purchase. That purchase, combined with a steady stream of other sales throughout the day/evening, the day closed with the largest amount of sales of our applications that has ever happened in a 24 hour period... in the 4 years of the business' existence! Not only is that cool in itself... but the amount of sales that came in was a little more than the amount of money we had determined that we needed extra this week!!
God knows what we need and He wants to bless us!! I know without a doubt that Kelly and I can always count on God taking care of our family because we have always been faithful in our giving... following the instruction found in the Bible regarding tithes and offerings. Even when our income was much less, we still made sure that we gave God the portion that was His. It was never an option. We didn't have to decide if we could afford to tithe from week to week... because we knew that we could not afford NOT to tithe! How could we ever expect God to bless us if we stole from Him... keeping the tithe that belongs to HIM?? (Malachi 3:8-9)
Now, please don't think I'm patting my own back for tithing... I don't see tithing as something extra that we can do for reward or recognition. It is simply what is expected and instructed of us to do... so we just do it.
Malachi 3:10 (NLT) "Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do," says the Lord Almighty, "I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in! Try it! Let me prove it to you!"
In this blog, I want to accomplish two things: one, to brag on my God and His continued faithfulness; and two, to testify and encourage you in the fact that as you are faithful to God, He will be faithful to you! As the Word says above in Malachi 3:10, try it! Let God prove Himself faithful to you!
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perry meade
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