The Lord cares about the small things in our lives just as much as He cares about the big things. Why's this important? Because once we've learned it, placing ourselves, our trust, in God is that much easier and rewarding.
Of course learning this is sometimes one of the hardest lessons we must endure because such lessons are often repeated again and again in our lives.
Ok. That said. Here is the blessing from God that altered my normal Wednesday routine.
Sunday night we had our monthly church meeting. Things we discuss often include finances, plans, maintenance needs... you know the normal business meeting kind of stuff.
Well, one of the things brought up involved the windows on the north side of the church sanctuary. During the last year we've had some minor problems during church services involving the windows. Ok, the windows weren't really the problem, it was more what was seen through them during Sunday services.
Over the last year we've had an increase in activity outside those windows from children playing, to people walking their dogs, to last Sunday when two young men thought it would be fun to use the empty lot next to us as a mud pit to rev their car around (when I say next to us I mean within 20-30 feet of the building) while we sat and listened to my father's sermon.
Now the church doesn't mind people using the church property and in fact we often encourage folk to come over and enjoy sitting under a tree, flying a kite, fishing, etc., but it is just a bit tad disturbing and a bit on the disrespectful side to goof off outside the church windows during the worship service.
So we discussed some options on what we might do to keep the disturbances down. First off we hit upon curtains for the windows, to blinds, to some kind of fake stain glass stuff, to the suggestion of a privacy fence which had been suggested in a meeting before this one (the muddy car during the morning service pushed it back onto the table).
We're a small church and money is always real tight so the fence, which seemed like a good idea, was out of range for our finances. So curtains sounded more in line, but I don't think that was a happy solution because curtained windows in a church sanctuary, however small and untraditional, don't seem attractive in my mind and I got the impression that some of the other members felt the same way.
So nothing was really decided except that we'd all think about it and maybe investigate the option of the fake stain glass idea and would likely put up some temporary curtains.
Enter in the Lord of the universe.
Tuesday morning my dad felt like going out to one of the local huge home improvement stores. I won't name it, but I imagine you could guess.
Anyway, he went out and a bit later this call came in asking if I could help him unload the truck. It was full of PRIVACY FENCING.
Oh, I guess I should mention that the fencing was free.
When my dad went to the store on Tuesday, out in front there was a couple of guys taking down the fence that is used to display the various types of available privacy fencing which can be purchased. The guys were putting up new designs.
Turns out the guys doing it work for a company that contracts with the home improvement line of stores in our area and they were in charge of the fencing displays and gave the old models to my dad because they were just going to throw them away.
Of course this meant that my dad got a bunch of varying models of fencing that wouldn't look all that great or fit all that well together, but the Lord was looking ahead of that and the guys told my dad that he could have the fencing from the other stores they were also redoing. After all will be said and done it looks like we will have enough privacy fence of the same shape, design, and size, to screen off the small section on the north side of the church sanctuary.
So this morning Dad got a call from the guy doing the fencing to let him know that he could pick up some more fencing from a third store a good half hour to forty-five minutes away. And off we went.
It's amazing how, even in the small thing, the Lord works in the lives of His children.
Oh yeah. While we were at this third store we were just about to leave and out in front was an employee of the home improvement store with a rack of closeout goods. On the rack were three "once" expensive florescent light ceiling fixtures that featured a nice wood trim. They were marked down some 60% each. After thinking about it we realized that the fixtures would be great for the youth room that we are making out of the duplex on the church property. We are planning on knocking down the center wall in the duplex to make it large enough for our growing youth program.
The employee said if we took all three she would give us 70% off and so we did. Dad went in to pay and I loaded the lights on top of the already loaded fencing.
There is no god greater than the Lord of Hosts!
“Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.” (Deuteronomy 15:10 AV)
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV)
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