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A Big Bag Of Shoes
By Keith Rawlinson
Volunteer Budget Counselor
When
you do things God's way, He blesses it. He said He would bless us
for following His ways and He keeps His promises--that's just the way
God is. Unfortunately, this concept has led to some
misunderstanding. Too many people think that God is going to
bless them with material wealth, usually in the form of money. It
is important to remember that God promised to bless us when we do
things His way, but he never said how
he would bless us. Here is a true story that I tell in my
counseling and in my financial class as an illustration of God blessing
us.
There was a woman in church who had found herself a single
mother. She had little or no income and was finding it very
difficult to provide for her children. As a result of the low
income, she could no longer afford the house she had been renting, so
had to move out of the house and into an apartment. Since
the move was just across town, she saved time by packing what
belongings she had into boxes and garbage bags. The next day,
after the move was completed and she had unpacked all of the boxes and
bags, she realized that the garbage bag into which she had packed her
and her children's shoes was missing. She drove back to the house she
had been living in and asked the landlord if he had seen the bag of
shoes. With sincere apology, the landlord told her that he did
see the bag of shoes, but since it was left behind and in a garbage bag, he assumed it was
trash and had already disposed of it. The woman was devastated.
Her church shoes and the shoes she wore to her job were in there,
her children's school shoes and church shoes were in there as well.
Now, they were gone and she could not afford the money to replace
them. Someone at church heard about the situation, decided to be
an answer to prayer and spent their own money to replace all of
the shoes the woman and her children had lost. The immediate
crisis had been dealt with, and the woman's prayers had been answered.
This
is a true story and, trust me, the woman was very relieved and felt
very blessed to have her prayer answered so quickly, completely and
specifically. God could have just provided her with some side
work through which she could have earned the extra money to replace her
family's shoes. God could also have chosen to have someone just
give the woman cash so she could replace the shoes. There are
many ways that God could have put money into the woman's life so
that she could replace the shoes; but, God chose instead to bless her
with a big bag of shoes. No more than the woman needed, and no
less. It was an answer to prayer, it was a blessing from God, and
it was not in the form of money.
As you go through
your financial life, and as you strive to do more and more things
toward handling your money God's way, remember the story you just read.
Yes, sometimes God chooses to bless His people with material
wealth, but sometimes not. It may not be with money, but God will
bless you for doing things His way. It is up to you to be
watching for those blessings. If you are expecting cash, you may
totally miss recognizing some of God's blessings in your life. He
might choose to bless you with cash, or He might choose to bless you
with a big bag of shoes (or whatever it is you really need), but He will bless you if you do things His way.
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This article copyright © 2009 by Keith C. Rawlinson
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