[ Monday, December 12, 2005 ]
Yesterday the money ran out.Having run out of cash, I withdrew 200 dollars from our bank account, leaving seventeen left over. An automatic deduction took all but the last 70 dollars of remaining credit limit from our cards. And it's still two weeks 'til payday.
On the other hand, our house was finally sold (again). The buyer, a bishop, should pay the initial two percent today. This money would see us through very nicely. Unfortunately, it will be locked up in a lawyer's office, an hour's drive away, only open during office hours.
However, while praying, we feel God has said not to worry. He'll see us through this difficulty.
One thing I learned as the house was sold : sometimes when God wants to bless, we still have to ask.
After the deal was closed, the estate agent (Edward) pointed out some part of the wall that where the paint was badly peeling, and suggested that we paint it - after all, he didn't want the buyer to complain. However, the kind of paint we used is expensive. We were looking at 70 dollars per tin. As the estate agen was driving off, we waved him back, and asked him if we could pay him to do it (he also does general contracting work). He said he didn't have time, and it wouldn't be worth our money to pay him, so we should paint it ourselves. Nonetheless, he then invited us to go in his car to a paint shop he knew.
The paint shop was shut but the proprietor was there. Edward brought us in, explained the problem, and the proprietor went to look for the correct paint.
Out of stock.
All he had left was some old mouldy almost dried discoloured left-over paint in the
bottom of a dented tin.
We took it. We also bought a brush.
Edward took us back to the house, revived the paint to its former glory, and then painted the parts then needed it. So the seventy dollar job got done for three dollars and fifty cents. Definately a blessing from God.
But we wouldn't have got it if we hadn't asked.
Mike [6:05 PM]
[ Thursday, December 08, 2005 ]
My wife borrowed "The Heavenly Man"
from the church library. I got to read a snatch or two in my spare moments. It's an amazing story, full of testimonies af miracles that God performed in the life of a Christian pastor in China, who suffered terrible persecution at the hands of the authorities.It seemed that no matter what random page I turned to, I would only have to read a few paragraphs to see some amazing miracle of providence and grace.
On the one hand, though, the book is a plane above my own walk. For me, suffering is not enough money or trouble at work. For him, it is arrests and torture. For me, miracles are money comes or trouble is turned around. For him, it is walking out of a maximum-security prison without the guards noticing.
In more abstract terms, I can see my own walk as a tiny mirror of his. I too disobey, suffer for it, yet find God at work in the midst of the trouble. Or obey, and suffer for it, yet see God's deliverance at the end. It's a matter of scale of course, and I dare not compare beyond the abstract.
Perhaps life's not so bad after all.
Mike [12:44 AM]
[ Monday, December 05, 2005 ]
"At just the right time" God saved us.One thing that's becoming clear to me this painful year, is that God does things at "Just the right time". Sure, He'd been telling us this all along - "Your house will be sold at just the right time. You will have another child at just the right time." We just weren't paying attention. How silly.
We moved into our new house - after I had spent exactly 3333 days in the old suburb. Amazing that God would choose one third of 10000 days. It shows (to me) that He is in control.
My wife was diagnosed pregnant only days after the move - just when it became clear that the previous buyer was not, in the end, going to pull through. Amazing that one painful problem suddenly gets replaced by a problem we had thought was already solved. My wife's pregnancy has come at what is seeming more and more like "Just the right time." When she was saying she couldn't take it any more. The timing means also that I will have no classes when the baby comes, and that it is still safe for us to fly home for Christmas.
Now I am beginning to learn how to believe that He will also send us a (genuine!) buyer for our house. When? He hasn't said, but again, it will surely be "Just the right time".
Just as Jesus died for our sins at "Just the right time."
Mike [10:54 PM]
