God is Good

It almost feels silly to title a blog entry that "God is good."  Of course He is good, basically, the whole point of my blog is to comment on situations in life and show God's goodness and how God shows his love and mercy and grace in all of life's circumstances.  Many things over the past few weeks have been piling up to declare God's goodness, and I wanted to share some of them.

God promises to provide for our needs.  We know that, but normally we like to figure out how it will all work out.  I'm a budget guy, I like to see it in my budget, figure out how to make the budget work, and stick to it.  The problem is, 6 growing children has made it harder and harder to stick to our budget in the food and clothing categories.  Not the end of the world, I assure you, but still something that was beginning to weigh on my mind.  Garage sales had come up short the last two summers, the garden hasn't been as productive in the freezing and canning areas, so we were beginning to feel a pinch.

A couple of weeks ago, I began more earnestly praying for God to provide our needs.  At times it feels selfish, because we already have so much, but I knew that God wants us to call out to him and trust his provision.  Strange things have been happening ever since.  We had a windfall of clothing finds at the first set of garage sales of the season, on top of a friend offering to buy things we needed at garage sales.  So much for the clothing budget pinch.  We continue to pray that God would provide for those needs, but less worried about how.  That's up to God.

Last week, I got a check in the mail from the NY labor dept.  It said that I had been underpaid at a previous job over 6 years ago, and the check was what was owed me by my previous employer.  Not a significant check, but a reminder that God has more resources to meet our needs than we know about.

This week, we were the beneficiaries of some leftover food from a wedding reception.  I had just told the church on Sunday that it is strange to pray for our daily bread when we know where it is already - whether we have the loaves on the counter, or have the flour to make bread in the cupboard.  But there, in the pile of food that was given to us, were 36 rolls to go with the sliced roast beef.  Truth was, I didn't know where my daily bread was coming from, and God had to remind me.  It comes from him.

These are the highlights, but by no means the total of God's blessings over the past few weeks.  I could tell of God working to neutralize gossip and false witness in the church and town, of God working in a families lives to grow and challenge them in Gods Word, of answers to prayer on many fronts.  Sometimes we focus on the struggles and the challenges, but today, I wanted to focus on the blessings.  God is good!

Praise ye the LORD. 
O give thanks unto the LORD; 

for he is good: 
for his mercy endureth for ever.

Psalm 106:1