Monday, February 20, 2012

Smoke by Day, Fire by Night

Recently my quiet time has been reading in the book of Exodus. When Moses lead God’s people out of Egypt, God promised to show them the way. God lead them with a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Does God go before you when you head out on a journey? We experience this all the time. Since, we started over eight and half years ago, God continues to supply our needs.

Several weeks ago one of my customers gave us some scrap metal to sell to buy can goods. We had four buckets of different material s to sell. Crossroads Recycling put the money in an envelope for us and I just added it to the grocery cash bag. We have been trying to stretch our grocery money budgeted for one week to two weeks. So, Dan Boomershine and I, made out our shopping list and off to Aldis we went. It took us about one hour to fill four grocery carts. We had them really loaded. As we put the groceries on the checkout belt, we usually get questions from others waiting in line to pay. Are you buying for a pantry? Where is the pantry located? It looks like you have a lot. Could we give you some cash to help buy the groceries? Every question was a divine appointment to share God’s provision for us with the folks in line.

As the cashier totaled things up he said that will be $799.98. I said let’s see how much God has in the bag today. When I added the scrap cash to what we had I had totaled it at $776.00. I pulled the wad of cash out of the envelope and started to count it out for the cashier. I laid the money on the counter, as I was counting it out for him. One hundred, two hundred, then up to seven hundred now I am into the smaller bills, seven fifty, seven sixty, seven seventy, seven eighty, I looked out the amount I had written on the front of the bag, $776. I kept going seven ninety, ninety one, ninety two, ninety three, ninety four, finally I got to ninety nine and the cashier said ninety eight cents. I handed him one more dollar, I had one dollar left. The cashier’s reaction was priceless, whoa! I told him isn’t God good. He just smiled.
I told Dan I felt like the Bailey Brothers. Dan got to see God provide that day as well as the cashier and a pair of brothers, who we were able to give them a ride home and pray with. You see when God sends you out on His mission, He will not only provide what you need to accomplish the mission but use you to minister to those around you that are watching.