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GOD’S PROVISION
When Temple Baptist Church in Fargo, North Dakota
heard that the Baptist International Mission Board was sending boxes of
food to feed families in Iraq, they decided to help. The 100-member congregation
set a goal of assembling 25 food boxes, but did not realize God had bigger
things in mind.
The South Valley Baptist Association contacted local
producers and growers asking for help. The community responded generously.
James Sabot, development director for the Baptist
Association said it is often hard to convince producers to help with a
giving program because so many people and organizations ask them for gifts
each month. Sabot said a flour-grinding mill donated 2,500 pounds of flour,
which kicked the project into high gear.
Producers and growers donated about 80 percent of
the total food count. Monetary gifts were used to purchase additional food,
which brought the total to 12,000 pounds of product.
Temple Baptist Church’s goal of 25 food boxes ballooned
into 181 boxes. It took thirty people to pack and load the food boxes that
Temple Baptist and two other Baptist churches in the area donated.
Sabot commented, “ People just wanted to help.” He
summed up the whole event as an “amazing continuation of God at work.”
—www.bpnews.net, God multiplies Iraq food project
beyond church’s wildest imagination, By Ashley Haygood, May 20, 2003. Illustration
by Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell.
Ephesians 3:20 NIV “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, for ever and ever, Amen.”
GOD’S PROVISIONS
An 85-year old Florida, Barbara Cosgrove was looking
for a picture of her ex-husband when she discovered an unopened envelope
in a nightstand drawer. Inside was a 32 year-old check for $17,500, a payment
on an insurance claim.
Cosgrove said she didn’t know why she hadn’t found
the check sooner because she had looked in the drawer “a thousand times”
before she found it. The check was payment on a claim from an accident
that took place in 1976. Although the check was worth a lot of money, it
is not clear if Cosgrove can still collect because the company that issued
the check was declared insolvent and liquidated several years earlier.
Woman finds unclaimed insurance check from 1978,
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100219/ap_on_fe_st/odd_unclaimed_check ; February
19, 2010, Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell
A check is worthless unless it is cashed. In the same
way, we must appropriate the blessings God has for us before we truly understand
them.
Ephesians 1:18-19 (MSG) “your eyes focused and clear,
so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the
immensity of this glorious way of life he has for Christians, (19) oh,
the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy,
boundless strength!”
GOD’S PROVISION
Besides the fact that a of school children got some extra days off,
the extremely cold weather created by the ”polar vortex” over North America
in January, 2014 may have had some unexpected benefits. For several
years, entomologists have been concerned with the impact of the emerald
ash borer on ash trees in parts of Minnesota. The scientists say temperatures
approaching nearly 20 below zero without a wind chill should have been
cold enough to kill many of the pests. They have estimated that almost
eighty percent of the population may have been killed by the extreme cold.
Though they recognize that the bark of the tree could insolate some of
the bugs, the fact that the cold lasted several days was another reason
for hope. Though the human population was inconvenienced in many
ways, these scientists say the unexpected cold spell could have unexpected
benefits..—Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell.
Emerald Ash Borer A Positive Casualty Of 'Polar Vortex' 2014, by Scott
Bickard, http://www.universityherald.com/articles/6683/20140108/emerald-ash-borer-a-positive-casualty-of-polar-vortex-2014.htm,
Accessed January 8, 2014.
Romans 8:28 (ESV) And we know that for those who love God all things
work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
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