A Small Display of His Greatness

Hello Friends,

Greetings to you in the grace of Christ! I have been recently enjoying fresh doses of the amazing grace of the Lord. Just last night in our Mini-Church, I was telling our group how encouraged I am when I read about Abraham from the book of Genesis. Yes, of course, I love the way that this guy chose to believe when everything around him indicated he was a fool to do so; but, it’s the fact that God chose to use this man who time and time again despite a long string of significant sinful blunders! I don’t think we give each other (or ourselves) anywhere near enough grace for our faults and failings. But that’s a blog for another day…

Recently, I was humbled and awestruck by the grace of God moving upon the hearts of some very "normal" people. (I put normal in quotes because the more I get to know people, the more I realize that normal is a fantasy!) I had an experience last weekend with some very normal believers allowing God to move through their lives in quite a supernatural way.

Last week I met with our Church Council. (The Church Council is an advisory board that oversees the financial and administrative parts of the church.) We are in the midst of seeking to purchase our own church building and so our conversations were dominated by financial statements, down payments, costs of renovation, and the like.

At the same time, our church was poised to send a small Missions Team to Myanmar. (Unbelievably, this is the fourth team we’ve sent in four years!) Unlike other years though, our dear friend, Dr. A.___ (name hidden for security), visited the U.S. in the late summer of 2008. The funds we would have normally "muled" into Myanmar on our winter journey were given to our friend directly when he visited. Over eight months since the last team returned in January 2008, we’d gathered nearly $8,500 and those funds were turned over to our dear friend when he visited. This left our team with only a few thousand dollars to take with them.

Dr. A.___ shared several needs via e-mail in the weeks leading up to our team’s departure. All I could do was write back reminding him of our mid-year gift while promising to pray and present opportunity to give to theBridge family.

Sitting in the Council meeting, the reality of our situation hit me. I carefully scanned our balance sheet looking for ways to pull some money from this account and some money from that account. While I looked at our financial statements, I kept thinking to myself, "We’ve got to keep as much of our cash savings in the bank as possible. The lenders are going to be looking very closely at what we’ve got. We’ll need everything we can muster to get a loan."

In plain English, I was looking for a way to be generous to the people and ministries of Myanmar that we support without actually being generous. (By the way, this is not possible.) It is not possible to be truly selfless and free in giving to the Lord and worried about keeping the balance sheet in undisturbed for some bankers simultaneously.

I needed, and indeed had, a breakthrough moment.

As we talked about what and how we could give to our friends in Myanmar, I stopped the conversation. In a flash, I had a personal "revelation." I shared with them that we could not approach our giving to Missions in this fashion. We needed to be willing to take undesignated cash savings, the savings we needed to have on our books, and use it to sow with generosity into Myanmar. Another Council member quickly suggested that we match dollar for dollar all the funds for Myanmar that would come in on the final Sunday before the team left.

With a renewed sense of Kingdom priorities we decided to invest $3,000 as matching funds to any giving made on the final Sunday. While not an enormous figure, that amount in addition to what had been previously collected would allow for our team to go with at least $6,000.

This is the part of the entry where I tell you about me. I was feeling pretty good. I had just stared selfishness and a "me-first" (regarding theBridge) attitude in the face and chose to put foreign missions above our own church’s legitimate needs. I’m not boasting, but I kept thinking, "Thank you, Lord, I know we are doing the right thing and you are going to take care of our church family; I trust you to do it!" Now all that needed to be done was to present the need before the church Body, take their gifts to couple with our commitment, and send off the funds.

I wasn’t even remotely prepared for what happened next. For context, understand that theBridge is a church of about 175 people. By and large, we are a generous group of Christians, but the economic downturn in our country has not missed our church Body. Some are out of work, others are taking pay cuts and reduced hours, and everyone is tightening up on spending. I figured that we’d gather another couple thousand dollars. Given the last minute nature of the situation, I was fully prepared to celebrate such a gift.

After sharing what had transpired in our Council meeting with the church Body in both services, theBridge family prayed together and we went on with our worship gatherings. Afterward, as we were cleaning up and tearing down our equipment, I slipped into the faculty lounge where the Council members and office staff were counting the week’s giving.

Over $9,900 had come in for Myanmar!! In one week, we had gathered more than had come in during the first eight and a half months of the year. In three hours!

I was surprised, excited, and completely humbled. Here I was thinking that the church was being generous in taking a few thousand dollars of discretionary funds to "plump up" our missions offering, and the Lord stirred His people to give three times that amount in one single day! I still can’t get over it; I’m amazed.

This scenario drives home the point that I am still, more than anything, a kid and a student of God’s incredible ways. I’m still learning. When I think I understand how He works, the Father does something so unexpected and marvelous that I’m left scratching my head saying, "Just how big are you, God?" He is more immense than I can wrap my mind around! David said it so well: "Great is the Lord! He is most worthy of praise! His greatness is beyond discovery!" (Ps.145:3 NLT)

This whole circumstance begs a hat full of questions. Can God accomplish His will? Can He give our church a building to use? Can he provide for His children whether they live in Yangon or Charles Town? Can He mobilize us with greater unity focus to rescue the lost and broken in our county? Can He heal, deliver, and transform? Can He recover? Restore? Resource? Release? CAN GOD DO ALL HE WANTS TO DO?

The answers to these questions are (in order): Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes!

In a sentence, my "take away" from this past week’s events is this: I think far too much of my own abilities and far too little of the Lords.

God is more than amazing. In His grace, I am brought close to His heart and ever shown a new, better, and more wonderful way to live! Friends, believe Him for more! "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen." (Eph. 3:20, 21 NIV)

-Tim

Comments

[Mary Ellen]

God is good ALL THE TIME
and is sooooo much bigger than we think.

[Kathie]

All I can think of to say is "WOW!" He is truly Amazing.

[Nlt]

God's goodness, how do we truly understand it? And yet, part of me asks, "why are we such slow learners?" Many times we ask, believing and yet we forget to expect. Aren't we so grateful that He is faithful, even when we are not? He deserves all the glory that is without question.

Blessings Pastor Tim and I am praying for the team that is in Mynamar.

[Felicity]

This is awesome Tim! Makes me realize we do not have to be a victim to the current economy, that God is bigger than all the headlines in the news, and that many times when others say "it's not possible" is when God makes it possible.