Try me now says the Lord, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing, that there will not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10)
There is so much to be taken from this testimony, but what I really want to hit on, why I believe God brought it to my mind this morning, “Radical Obedience.” In 1998 my husband I made a move from Texas his home state, to Arkansas. We came here on a job transfer which at the time the pay was only $8 an hour and I was going to be taking a job at the minimum wage of $5.25 an hour once we got here. We came here with a lot of baggage as well and not just the kind you take on vacation, if you know what I mean. Times were tough, for what seemed like a very long time, but we loved God, we trusted Him and we were being obedient to His Word in Malachi. There were days we literally had to believe God for our next meal, via the cousin who was retired and now a vegetable peddler, who would be coming by our home that we were renting at the time with his left-over veggies that he didn’t sell that day at the market. Neither of us had ever lived so scarcely before, yet so intently about our finances and our faith that God would provide just what we needed at just the right time. Standing on the verse (Phil. 4:19) “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” We truly were relying on divine provision through our faith and trust in His Word. Because we were new Christians and we still didn’t really KNOW God, you know, really know Him! Was His Word something we could actually take to the bank? It wasn’t long now until we were about to find out and we found out, through “Radical Obedience.” One of the troubles we had been facing during those tough times was vehicle issues. We had two and they both went out of service at the same time and left us stranded for transportation, how were we going to get to work now? With what money do we have to purchase another vehicle while we fix these? Just like how God is using me right now to share about Him and His goodness, little ‘ole housewife me, he provided a person who we would not have seen coming, to loan us the money for another used vehicle. We are now back on the road because of His provision and our faithfulness and trust in His Word. Now my husband would spend countless hours and hard labor to fix these broken vehicles on his off hours from his job. I thank God for the gifts that He has given each of us, because one of the many He gave my husband was the ability to know the mechanics to fix the vehicles. Money saved is money earned! Now we begin to move forward. We have three vehicles all running and we only need two, but we want to purchase a home of our own and we are going to need some money for a down payment. So, naturally we had the idea we would sell the car we purchased to hold us over while fixing our other two and that would give us “some” of the money we needed. Meanwhile, a lady from our church and her two daughters were going through the same situation we just came out of with three of them, no way to get to work, church, store, etc. I remember it was a Wednesday night and during fellowship hearing their story, I could definitely relate being we had just gone through this same thing. The next day I heard this voice saying, “give them your car.” What? Surely, NOT. We need that money to buy a house. But all day it just kept nudging at my heart, so finally I said, “God, if this is REALLY You, then tell my husband the same thing you are telling me and then I will believe you.” A little time passes and I am getting antsy, I ask my husband, “hey, have you been hearing anything from God?” His reply was, Yeah, I have. I have been thinking about the lady at church, and I know it sounds crazy, but we have this car…. yep, he said it! So, I asked him, “so what do we do?” he replies with, “give her the car.” We really didn’t know what we were doing at the time, all we knew was, if God said, do it! So that next Sunday we went to church with title to the car in hand and gave it to her. First, watching her and her daughter’s reaction was grander than anything I could have imagined. I thought my heart was going to explode. Then, suddenly, the windows of heaven were about to open up and pour out a blessing! We received a check in the mail for three times the amount we were going to sell that car for, and it was EXACTLY the amount we needed to put down on the home we wanted to purchase. Might I add, the money also came from a source only God could have orchestrated. This testimony, like I said in the beginning has many different facets of God that I could touch on, but today I believe it was all about “Radical Obedience.” I would like to add as well, “You cannot outgive God.” You know the Israelite’s once said in (Exodus 24:7)”We will do everything the Lord has said, we will obey.” “Whatever God commands we are in!” that was repeated twice because they finally knew God. Even if we don’t completely understand what the Lord is doing, if He speaks it, just do it. Small acts of obedience are just as important; they will bring your soul satisfaction by knowing you are pleasing the Lord and don’t ever think little things don’t matter to God because nothing goes un-noticed by Him. He delights in His children’s obedience.
The fear of God will result in Obedience to God (Haggai 1:12)
Bread and Water 