My ship comes in

Whew. What a revelation. I've suddenly lost all my worries, woes, bills. Today is a day that the Lord has made, and I've hit the jackpot. Really.

First, someone on the planet named Warren Conner, maybe, donated $500,000 to me. Whew. All my anxiety is gone. Then, someone with an e-mail address of tina.a.jacobsson@ptj.se says I have won the British lottery with 1,000,000,000 pounds in the offering. My goodness, what a day.

My ship has come floating in, beaten and banged up, but floating.

Is that what we're waiting on, friends, neighbors, and unknown readers? And if I were to reply to either of those e-mail addresses, would that really float my boat?

All of this is a long-way round to get to the issue of faith.

Jesus said this:  “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."
Jesus said this:  “I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”

Jesus, as near as my searches can find, never said, "create all the bills you can find, all the worries you can muster, all the pain you can produce because, TADA, I'm sending Warren Conner to you with $500,000 when you least expect it because you have faith.

This notion that all good things will come to those who believe is an interesting one. What I've seen in my travels in the ministry does everything but dispute that as blasphemy. I see terribly faithful persons with all sorts of ailments, concerns, worries, woes, ills, pains. I've been in agreement with several in a room as we pour our hearts out for someone who had contracted a terrible illness. I've seen the anointing oil pouring down the face of someone I cared deeply about as they got sicker and sicker.

I've seen people fall away because they believed that when two or more are gathered, great prosperity surely is around the bend, and it wasn't. It just wasn't. Maybe it was never going to be in the first place.

Look, when you don't go to college, don't give yourself a good resume, over-spend, over-covet, you're probably never going to be on the richest persons in America list. Doesn't mean you won't be, but it probably won't come via e-mail. Conversely, if you went to college, have a great resume, never over-spent, never coveted others' stuff, tithed, prayed daily, read scripture like it was water to a thirsty person, and loved everyone you came in contact with, you might still get cancer.

This is the world we created when we couldn't keep our hands off the tree of knowledge. Doesn't mean God doesn't answer those two-or-more prayers or that miracles have gone away. Means there is a world out there where certain laws work, like gravity, circling the sun and such. God created those, as well as a perfect situation. We messed it up.

Faith, to me, means I trust God that though I am insufficient, God still reigns. What that means on a daily basis is I have faith in Him, not me, and if I listen as much as I can on a particular day, He will guide me.

Unlike those AT&T commercials, one thing is better than two. That one thing is the faith God still listens, still acts, still loves. How that manifests itself is for Him to work out.

Now, I have to go answer some e-mails.