My pastor shared a time when he and his wife literally didn’t have any food or money. One day when dinner time was approaching, his wife started putting three empty pots on the stove. He asked, “What are you doing?”
Her reply: “God will provide.”
Not long after the empty pots were on the stove, a chef from an upscale restaurant, who they knew, came to their house unannounced with bags of food already seasoned and ready to be fired-up from his overstock: filet mignons, potatoes, and vegetables. The only thing she had to do was put the blessings into the three pots, and cook.
Outrageous faith!
Another lady told me of a time when she and her four children didn’t have any food or money. When it came time to eat, the children told her they were hungry. She said, “Set the table.”
Children: “What are we going to eat?”
Mother: “I don’t know. Set the table.”
Children: “What for, there’s no food.”
Mother: “Just set the table.”
During this back and forth exchange, a stranger came to the door and asked the mother, “Are you the lady of the house?”
Mother: “Yes.”
Stranger: “The Lord told me to give you this.”
The man handed her an envelope with enough money to feed her and her children for days to come.
Extreme faith!
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. (Psalm 37:25)
These stories sound like they were taken from a Grimm’s Fairy Tale, nevertheless, they are true accounts of people who put their faith on the line knowing that God would provide. They gave their faith movement: putting empty pots on the stove, setting the table when there was no food.
If you are believing God for something that agrees with His will for your life, it doesn’t matter how bleak the circumstances might be, trust God to provide. Why would He lead you to do something without providing the means to do it?
Nonsensical faith!
Don’t confuse a dead-end street with a faith test. Faith has to be tested. And in order for it to be tested, it has to be stretched—even to the point of you looking and feeling foolishly. Faith grows through struggle and hard times. But don’t sweat it—
God will provide!
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. (1 John 5:14-15 NIV)
© 2018
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