October 28, 2003

Provision and Praise

"I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out." Luke 19:40

It would be a sin for me not to share the way the Lord has been providing for Stephanie and I these past few weeks. The Lord has used some unexpected "problems" to get us to rest on Him for His provision.

Last week, BigBlueHat was supposed to be publishing its first e-commerce site. Everything was in place, all we thought we'd have to do is "flip the switch." Turns out, one has to be a certified flip-switcher before that can happen.

We were told the certification process would take 6-8 weeks. That was about 6-8 weeks longer than we had expected. After a few sales calls, it looked like we had a Plan B available that would cut the time down to 1-2 weeks. The time frame was much more to our liking, so after some prayer we jumped. I'm confident the Lord has used every piece of this circumstance to focus us on Him.

After jumping, we found out (Monday of this week) that Plan B was actually (due to one of the companies current work load) going to take the same amount of time as Plan A. Tuesday came. We prayed some more and decided to go with Plan A. We had already started the transfer of $199 to facilitate Plan B. After some research, we found that if we were going to get any use out of our $199 investment, we'd have to spend at least another $195 (ask me about Merchant accounts some time).

The Lord gave us grace and strength. We were able to call the company we had spent the $199 with and cancel our order. To the Lord's praise, that company doesn't actually fulfill transactions until the first of each month. We were able, by God's grace, to cancel the order and never spend a dime.

His way is perfect. In the midst of all this he has pushed us farther than we thought we could go, brought us to a new horizon of expansion (being certified with a major payment gateway), and increased our faith 100 fold.

I did find that after circumstances became a little more "stable," that I began to put my faith back on the shelf and start to worry about what to do next. I know my Lord is greater than myself. I know that He provides food and clothing for His children. I just never thought I'd have trouble believing that.

If you ever catch me worrying, ask me who owns my business.

Posted by TheIdeaMan at October 28, 2003 10:12 PM | TrackBack