“That food was never for you,” I heard the Lord say. My team was walking home from Chillis in Guatemala City last night when we heard a woman sobbing. Through her tears and as she held her 12 year old daughter, she told us that she had just been evicted from her apartment. She explained she has lost her job after her boss was shot and killed in a gang-related robbery, and she couldn’t pay her rent. She was behind four months and was sleeping on the street.
Strange thing was, I had showed up at the restaurant earlier not planning to eat… But hunger struck so I ordered food, then the weirdest thing happened – as soon as my food arrived, I felt too full to eat. Surprisingly, I ordered thinking I was getting the smallest portion on the menu, but my plate was bigger than everyone else’s! I placed the to-go box by the woman, knowing that food was hers from the beginning.
Then I realized I still had a pretty good sum of money in my wallet. I’d taken it out last month to pay for a project, and didn’t end up paying in cash but was still carrying it. I placed it in her hand and found out later through a teammate that what we collectively gave the woman was almost exactly enough to pay her back rent. I felt good about giving her the money – after all, it wasn’t mine to begin with. The Lord has prompted people to give to me, and as I have freely received, I can freely give. Unbelievably, we also found out that she just accepted Christ only 8 days ago, and that she had been praying fervently every day for a miracle. Actually, I can believe it. I’ve seen God provide miracle after miracle, to the point where I’m never surprised anymore when I hear stories of God providing in miraculous ways. Heaven’s economy is much different than our economy. (Also, I don’t normally give out cash, I think there are usually better ways to help. But this felt like a unique/crisis situation, and I felt the Lord prompting me as well)
You see, when I was called to my first mission trip to Haiti, I couldn’t afford to go. Desperate, I donated plasma, I thought about applying for a new credit card. I didn’t want to humble myself to ask for money. But the Lord worked through it anyway, and I literally had a person I’d only met a couple of times before show up at my doorstep with an envelope full of cash. He said he felt prompted by the Lord to give me the money to go. It was almost exactly what I needed. Two years later, people told me how hard it would be to fundraise over $16,000 for the World Race, but I just smiled. I knew it was change in God’s back pocket.
What I’ve learned is that generosity begets generosity. I just googled that and found it’s actually in the Bible! (Message version, Luke 4:38). God doesn’t mind when we ask for blessings – especially when we are planning on giving those blessings away. Bill Johnson from Bethel says “Why do you need to be blessed? So you can address every opportunity to do a good work.” So that you can have a to-go box in your hand and cash in your pocket, ready for the need to arise.
These past 11 months have been possible due to the generosity of all of you. Each person who is reading this has given to me in some way – whether it be financially, in prayer or just your time to read this blog. When I think of how fortunate and blessed I have been, words are never enough. However, thank you for living such a generous lifestyle that has enabled me to do the same.
