When God supplies, and replenishes the supply... and does it all again.
As the week unfolds, this verse keep springing to mind:
"Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows." ~Malachi 3:10
Last summer, CarePortal Cincinnati was blessed with a donation of 110 bed frames from a local university. The CarePortal community in Fairfield County Ohio connected us with that source and our team filled storage areas in churches all over the city with bed frames! Since then, we've received several more large donations and though we were steadily serving kids with beds, our storehouses were bursting at the seams.
Last week that SAME Fairfield county connection reached out again, this time they NEEDED beds to meet a need in Texas for refugee children. We were thrilled to help! So, Wednesday morning, a team from Pickerington Ohio drove to Cincinnati to load up as many beds as they could carry, and then drive them down to serve kids from across the world... in Texas. We sent them on their way with beds, cribs, pack-n-plays, toys, diapers, toiletries and anything else they thought might be useful from our storage space. They asked repeatedly if we were SURE we didn't want to save a few things back... are we SURE we want to give everything... are we SURE??? And faith answered each time, "We are sure. God filled this room and He can fill it again!" By 11am our storehouse was empty. We blessed that team as they drove away to serve kids in another place, and by 1:30pm, our Cincinnati caseworkers had submitted 19 bed requests!!!! The first thing I did was text my prayer partners to say this:
" We just cleared out our stock pile of beds, and now we have 19 bed requests... WATCH what God is about to do!"
All day, I've sounded like a broken record repeating ,"GOD CAN FILL THIS ROOM AGAIN"... I'm not gonna panic now! And I just have to tell you that by 8pm 12 of the beds had already been dropped off at their destination point and every bed was spoken for by another local church!!!! I even got a phone call this morning from another church leader who has beds, but didn't get to her computer screen fast enough to serve this time! Talk about pouring out for us a blessing until it overflows!!!!
And here's dessert, in case that isn't food enough for your soul! This week, we also had a CarePortal church in LA reach out to meet a few Cincinnati needs out of THEIR CarePortal budget overflow. We also continue to be blessed by funds provided by the Liberty University Football team in Virginia. The lesson here is that God will provide! He even says "test me in this"... we did... He proved himself faithful, true to his word and generous beyond measure! I know this to be true: YOU CAN'T OUT GIVE GOD! The more we pour out, the more room we make for Him to pour IN!
My encouragement to you this week is this: Open your hands and let God's blessing pass through them! Our Fairfield County Careportal leader likes to say "Be a river, not a reservoir"... And my Pastor says, "God will give more through you than He will give to you". Whichever turn of phrase you prefer, the bottom line is that God honors your gift and has a purpose for it! Every time we respond to the Lord with "It's all yours" He proves Himself sufficient to meet all our needs and then some!
If God has blessed you with a little surplus, or you have items you are no longer using, consider blessing a family in need. Test the Lord in this! Watch as He "opens for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows." Thank you all, for your continued support of CarePortal, your prayers and your quick responses to the needs in your own backyards. May the Lord give you increasing confidence in his ability to fill your storehouse! May you be a river of blessing to your communities! And may you take great joy in your role in God's Kingdom!
"The Lord loves a cheerful giver!" (2Corinthians 9:7)
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