Mark's Blog

I want to tell you about the goodness of God.  To understand this story, I need you to think as if you were reading it in a split screen on your computer though—two parallel stories that converge at the end.

Split Screen One

Monday was the first working day of October and therefore the end of Let’s Start Talking’s Month of Joyful Giving 2011.  Sherrylee leads this month—as most of you know because you received a personal call from her!  (If you didn’t, it’s not too late! J)

Monday morning though she was struggling a little because the final amount raised in the month appeared to be $71,000 short of the goal that had been very prayerfully set.  She told me she was just questioning whether she ought to continue asking , or maybe she had not been prayerful enough and had not really set God’s goal, but her own—all quite normal questions for us humans who only see in a mirror darkly.

Finally, she said to herself, “It is not up to me. God can make this happen—or not!”

Split Screen Two

A regular Christian guy had been in the audience on Saturday night when Sherrylee told the audience that a goal of $200,000 had been prayerfully set, but that we all knew this was a goal we would never reach unless God worked mightily.

He knew he wanted to make a contribution—but that’s all he really knew. Monday—at the same time Sherrylee was wrestling with God’s will—he called the LST office to see how close we were to reaching the goal.  It was then he found out that LST was $71,000 short of the goal.

He decided then that whatever he made that day on the deal he had had been working on, would be what he would contribute to LST.  He even set a time to make the call.  At two o’clock, he would make the call.

At about three o’clock, he and I were sitting in my office. He started telling me his story of seeking God’s will and of his decision to contribute whatever he earned on this deal. I sat there not knowing whether to hope for $500 or $5000! Either one would have been very appreciated.

By the time he told me that he had earned exactly $71,000, we were both on the verge of tears because the finger of God was so obvious, writing out this story long before LST had a goal and long before he even knew that he wanted to contribute.

One Screen

Yes, I do believe that a really huge, out-of-reach goal set prayerfully and a really huge contribution given cheerfully by someone who is truly just a regular Christian guy—not rich, not anything but a true Christ-follower—I believe both are the result of the providence of an amazingly good God!

One of the blessings of growing older is that the accumulation of these kinds of stories begin to truly teach me not to worry about the future, not to be afraid that God will run out of funds to do what He wants to do.

*I have changed a few details to protect the privacy of this person, but nothing that would exaggerate in any way the true impact of this God-story.