Saturday, October 02, 2004

God provides

Well folks, a little change from the usual here. We'll get back to Keith and his questions, but I wanted to give God the credit for something amazing that happened last week.

As some of you know, Hayley and I live by faith. What that means is that we get donations and depend on God to take care of us, and our "daily bread". He has done a great job so far - quite miraculous infact as those of you who have sat in our big, leather green lazy-boys can attest. We got those chairs for free from God's hand, and He has also provided all the furniture in our living room, our car and many other things - all for free. He's the best boss that we've ever had and so we trust him but also don't expect to live in luxury. As Paul says in Philippians 4:12, we are "content in every situation"

Well, so far in our 4 year marriage God has provided us with sub-north-american standard (see www.globalrichlist.com for global standards ;) sleeping arrangements. We have been sleeping for almost a year now on an air-bed that you would use for camping. This was also donated and we accepted it as from God and have been content with it.
After a number of mattresses had deflated on us, we began to pray for a new bed. One day we went to Ikea just to look and get an idea of prices, but sadly everything was way out of our budget and we do not believe in credit cards. The one that caught my eye was the King size "Noresund" bed - click here: with the Sultan Hasselback Mattress that was on display. It was fun jumping on it with the kids, but we knew it was not realistic. We came home and patched the air mattress and kept sleeping on it.

Last Monday we were thinking of something to do for our "family day" and Hayley suggested we head to Ikea, then the park. It seemed like a good "outing" for the kids so we got ready and were packing up the kids in the car when the mail man came and put the days mail in our box. Just before we left I decided to check the mail, and to my astonishment found a cheque in an envelope for the exact ammount we would need to get the bed!!! I felt like I was in an "if like were like that, you wouldn't need Visa" commercial! But it was true! I showed Hayley and she just broke down and started crying. It was amazing how God had provided...but the story isn't over!

So...we rushed to Ikea and asked the lady about the bed we were "dreaming" about! She told us that it was out of stock for 2 weeks but she could order it for us. We were disappointed and began looking at other beds when she said "oh wait, they just took the display model down to "as-is" this morning". Hayley and I looked at each other, grabbed the kids and ran down to find that the exact bed we had been bouncing on with our kids was not only available, it was over 100.00 off the original price!!! God is so good! We were able to get 2 goose-down-filled pillows with the extra 100.00.

It was a truly amazing experience. One we have experienced time and time again as we trust God day by day for Him to provide. Let this be an encouragement to you that God can provide for you, as long as you wait for him and trust him. We had to sleep on that air mattress and be content with it for almost a year before He gave us the nice bed. Let us learn that extremely valuable lesson, especially in our materialistic north-american culture" that:

1. Hebrews 13:5 - click here - Keep your lives free from the love of money and BE CONTENT with the things you have, for He Himself has said "never will I leave you nor forsake you"
2. 1 Timothy 6:8 - click here - If we have food and clothes BE CONTENT
3. 1 Timothy 6:6 - click here - CONTENTMENT with godliness is great gain.

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