God's Funny Like That

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know.....Ask and you shall receive. But whatever, right?

Growing up in a Christian home and having gone to church my entire life, I was already pretty familiar with the notion of "God will give you what you ask for (so long as you are faithful in Him)."

"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." Matthew 21:22

I am fairly certain that I have experienced this phenomena before, but on smaller scales and I did not ever really recognize that the granted wish came from God (much less from anywhere - just happened). If I did, it probably was not me who asked and/or received; it was most likely someone else - someone more "faithful/spiritual" than I.

But today I experienced His generosity. As many of you know, I am abroad right now working at a vacation Bible school in Kaohsiung, Taiwan helping teach English in the camp. As of yesterday (the day before the camp was to start), we did not have enough helpers to help manage all 50 kids that we were expecting to attend. It was a real stress for more than one reason. But anyways, we prayed over it and asked God to send us helpers. And I'll be honest, I was not super faithful. It's not that I didn't think that God could do it, but I just didn't think it would happen. I guess subconsciously I felt like this was just going to be one of those situations that everyone goes through that you just have to muscle through and hope it does not crash and burn. But nonetheless, we prayed. And what do ya know?? We came to the VBS today prepared for the worst and we were met with 3 or 4 wonderful ladies who stayed to help look after the children so that we could lead effectively and make things fun for the kids! This truly was a God thing; it had to have been. We later found out that one lady who helped us was basically a stranger (not in a creepy way; she was probably a mom of one of the kids). But she was a serious life-saver. The fact that she stayed to help without feeling obligated or asked to by us was outstanding. God must have laid it on her heart to help us.

This was a nice reminder that God does look out for His children, even when we may not believe He will pull through. I forget this often, but God doesn't. I think he has fun with us like this. I can laugh about it, too. God's funny like that.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths." Proverbs 3:5 HCSB

Kaohsiung City, Taiwan