A Day of "Trials" and "Blessings"

Even after nearly 48 years on this earth it still amazes me how a single day can consist of a wide range of contrasting emotions and events. For a Christian this daily potential is backed by one on going hope or assurance. The day, either of itself or within the context of a longer range of time, will always result in growing them spiritually or in bringing glory to God. Sometimes it’s “a two for one special” and its both. This happens only by the active and sovereign will of God. This brings me to the events of today.

The day didn’t start out too well. I woke up at 6:40 AM on my day off. This was after only sleeping 5 hours. The scale told me that I hadn’t lost any weight after exercising twice yesterday. I couldn’t get connected to a virtual online job fair for a company I was looking into working for. I spent about 45 minutes filling an application online that couldn’t be completed because of a software issue.

Finally, I found out that my request for 2 of the 3 days I need off in October from my current job at ShopNBC had been denied.

By the time all those frustrating events happened I was at my wits end in the “faith” department. I know God doesn’t want me to be tired. Why couldn’t I sleep? He wants me to lose weight. Why are the scales not moving? I know he wants me to get a job where I can spend more time with my wife. Why couldn’t I log on to the job fair or complete the application? I need those days off to go to James wedding in Gatlinburg. Why were they denied?

Now I didn’t really want answers to those questions I just wanted to give into my lack of faith; at least for a few minutes. After a while I decided that it wasn’t God’s fault. After all His word is filled with verses and promises that He’ll always be faithful and do what’s best for us. He never changes and is always faithful. I was being impatient and selfish; wanting things to be easy.

Putting my “crisis of faith” aside I looked toward the things I needed to do the rest of the day. Those things turned out to be things that showed me where God really wants me to put my faith: into action.

Over the course of the rest of the day I would come to realize the blessing of being allowed to serve others and help them in ways they aren’t expecting.

I dropped off some household goods to the Good Will store. There weren’t any clothes or appliances or anything major but there may be something that someone might need and get a blessing from finding it.

I also delivered a small room air conditioner to our neighbors at the end of our street. They have some small children who do not have any thing but a fan to keep them cool at night. The A/C unit we recently removed from our bedroom window should be a blessing to those children. The children’s father was very grateful for the blessing.

Coincidentally later in the afternoon a deacon from our church came by our house and picked up the 2nd and larger air conditioner we had stored away. He's going to give it to a co-worker who was living in a trailer with no A/C.

Being able to give some our possessions to help bless others is an action that’s very humbling and a blessing at the same time.

Finally the event that made me realize what a blessing serving others is happened when I led the children’s ministry hour at our church in the evening.

I really didn’t do much except teach the kids about puppets and how to use their imagination to create a character. I also taught them how to tell a story with their creations. There wasn’t much taught from the Bible during the hour but it was a time for the kids to have fun and just enjoying being at church. For me it was a realization of just how much I still enjoy teaching children.

So there you have my day of events that ran from a “trial of faith” to an afternoon and evening of blessings. As I wrote at the beginning I’m still very surprised at how much can happen in a day. Now that it’s over I am grateful that God is so faithful and is teaching me lessons (several of them sometimes) on a daily basis. No matter how low the gage gets on my “faith meter.” I can always fall back on Jesus to be faithful and count on his blessings.