Giving It All

This past week I was writing a message that I gave on Wednesday at Linked 180 youth group. It was about Christmas and the true meaning. I wrote about how we seem to make it about greed and want, credit card debts and empty bank accounts, instead of Love and Jesus. I encouraged them not to buy gifts that you know people wont need, but find people who do need and give them gifts. So as I was writing this I began to cry. I started remembering the night before how I almost had my wife talked into buying a 32 inch lcd plasma screen. I mean it was only $299 now. Well, like always, she began telling me how we didn't need it. How we would be ok with just a regular one that we could find for $20. Of course, I agreed, because she was right. I began to think of early that day how we picked up these people who were walking. They were walking because his truck broke down. So we dropped them off and headed to the auto parts store. Well I didn't know all the specs. about the truck so i couldn't get the parts he needed. I did however get the price range. You know what it was? $250. I started thinking of how right my wife was. I would way rather spend $250 on someone in need then on a dang tv. But the story goes on!!!

A little background first. I have recently put in my resignation to the PowerHouse. What am I going to do you ask? I don't really know. I have been trying to drive amish and I am getting a little bit , but still am not up to what I was making working full time. It seems that since I have stepped into the unknown more and more people have been showing up with more and more needs. So what do you do? Well you be a good steward, YOU GIVE IT ALL AWAY!! You might be thinking, well that isn't very Biblical, but I would say well you better read it again. Jesus says to give to all who ask. He also says don't worry about what you are going to wear or eat(side note this is found in Luke chapter 12 in this same chapter He tells His disciples to sell everything and give to the poor cause where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Read the whole chapter it will mess your economics up.). So that is what we are doing, giving money away to people in need. Now to the rest of the story.

So I finish writing my message and start teaching on Wednesday. I tell them all about the plasma and talk about giving to people in need. Well Thursday came. We were over at Brandi and Thans for the sweet Documentary night. When we get home someone had dropped off the exact 32 in plasma we were looking at. WOW. Isn't that amazing. It was even someone that wasn't connected at all to the message I taught or would have known what I was going through that week. And it still gets better.

Yesterday I went to go pick up a stove for our kitchen that we found on our favorite site Craigslist. I had someone go with me who had a truck so that we could get it home. Well I brought a check to pay with, because I wasn't even thinking about him not wanting to take a check from someone he had never meet. Well we get there and of course he didn't want to take the check. So the guy with the truck paid and I told him i would just write him a check for it. Well we get it home and I was going to write the check and he was like, "No you don't have to write me a check. Merry Christmas." WOW.

It's starting to sound like the prosperity gospel, lol JK. I think it is just another way that God is showing me and my wife that He knows our needs and wants. He knows our situations. He knows how we are using our money. Now I did tell my wife that if we don't use these things we have been given for Jesus then we are selling them and giving the money away. These things are not ours. As you can tell, we have done nothing to get them. They are God's and we have to use them for Him.

Tracy