Pronto Obedience!

“And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.” – 2 John 1:6.

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One day, I discovered I only had $ 9,000 left in my savings - tucked safely in my desk drawer. Actually, I still had some $ 700 in my wallet but even with that, I was still probably the poorest "Chairman of the Board" this universe has ever known. At about nine that morning, a member of our Catholic group called up and told me that her daughter was in the hospital: She needed $9,000, pronto!

"Lord, how could you?" I whispered under my breath, "Why do You always have to be so exact? Why do You always ask for all that I have?"

"Pick up your money here," I told her as cheerfully as I could, hiding my anxiety. At the back of my mind, I was already imagining the dire and morbid consequences of my decision. Living with only $700 in my wallet meant not eating pizza for a few weeks (Oh no!), jogging to my prayer meetings, and wearing the same old clothes I have.

A few minutes later, another friend barges through our front door, weeping, and tells me about her family problems. It ended with her very nervous plea, "Brother, can you give me $ 500?"

I started laughing. "Not $700?"

She shook her head, baffled at my question. I pulled out my wallet, gave her $500 and she left. (When you have a very thin wallet, that simple act is very, very difficult to do!) But as I did that, a small bundle of crumpled, folded-up paper popped out of my wallet. I picked it up and couldn't believe my eyes: It was another $500! Where in the world did that come from?

Suddenly, I felt God was telling me it was "miracle" time. In my excitement, I wanted to get my $9,000 ready to be given away. (Who knows what would pop out as I did that?) I went to my room and grabbed the wad of paper bills from my drawer -- and shoved it into an envelope. But before sealing the cover, I thought of recounting the cash. I leafed through the bills, counting rather monotonously, "One thousand...two thousand...three thousand..." It was only when I mentioned "...eleven thousand..." that I stopped, realizing that something was terribly wrong. Finally, when I reached fifteen thousand, I knelt down, cried a little, and said a heartfelt prayer of thanks. "Lord, You're something else. You still want me to eat pizza after all."

"My son." I felt the Lord speak to my heart, "today I insisted that you give me all that you have. And you did -- I honor you for this.  But there will still be many times when I'll ask you the same thing: all of your time, all of your future, all of your desires. It is scary. But you'll have to trust Me. For as you give your all, you will be empty. But in your emptiness, you will have more room for Me.

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"One act of OBEDIENCE will take you further Spiritually than listening to 500 sermons on obedience."

Stay Blessed!