My Evolving Signs

God works in mysterious ways. That has been a message that I have been receiving loud and clear over the last few weeks, and I wanted to share the latest with you today. Over the past few weeks our pastor has been preaching on the lessons learned through the story of Exodus. In the context of the baby Moses being sent down a river by his mother, to be found by pharaoh’s daughter and to have his mother selected as the royal family’s nanny, our pastor put it in a humorously joking and loving tone that in the way that story played out, God was just flat out showing off in his power to shape coincidences into his divine plan.

Through the ebb and flow of life so many things seem random, vague and appear to have no commonality. But viewed through the proper context, I have found that God does an absolutely breathtaking job of webbing it all together. I experienced this in my own humble way this past week.

In an earlier post I mentioned that my wife and I recently wrote the single largest check I have ever written, made out to our home church. In truth from my perspective, we gave this gift (and our regularly monthly church giving for that matter) following what we consider God’s instruction through scripture to prioritize giving to our regular place of worship so that in the act of giving we become the people God calls us to be. Deep inside I was excited and held an open spirit, eager to see what God was planning to do with our gift.

I’ll admit I was skeptical as to how far of a reach our regular giving can go in a formal church setting. Internally, I drew a comparison to the US electoral college voting process. The idea being that my dollars and cents/vote is just one in a sea of many and that from my vantage point, I could honestly not have much of a tangible impact. Well, God just decided to show me how stupid that logic was.

The week after our check cleared we found ourselves in church service scanning through the weekly bulletin. In it includes a high level blurb on the church’s finances, specifically how much church income was expected and how much was received. Low and behold that particular week the income received exceeded the income expected by right around the same amount our check was for. I firmly believe that God wanted to show and encourage me that, “yes you can make an impact and I’m going to do amazing things with this.”

It wasn’t just our check that made me elated. It was that our dollars and cents are snowballed with the gifts of others in furthering our church’s mission. It was so encouraging to me that members of the congregation are holding true to their commitments and that my wife and I can tangibly help add to the work being done through our church’s ministries. Needless to say I wait in happy anticipation to see what God has in store next.