When God takes notice

"If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him" (Matthew 7:11)

Today, I had an amazing experience which I want to share with you all, because I want to thank Him publicly for being such a faithful God. Daniel and I had to deal with a bill which we couldn't afford to pay. The bill was £200 and had to leave our account today. We prayed and we hoped for something to happen, but a big part of us was doubting and being worried (as you do). I asked my friend, Tina to pray for us as well and she sent me the verse above by text reminding me of a conversation we had Saturday about how Abba (Hebrew for daddy) is not as our earthly fathers. As kind and good as they might be, they sometimes disappoint us, but Abba never will.
I had a hard day at work because on top of my work I tried not to think about the bill. At noon, Daniel called me to tell me a cheque has arrived through the post for £250 from someone who wanted to thank him for doing a good job on an album.

I feel in awe and ashamed, humbled and loved...I wanted to thank Him somehow. I thought "My words are not good enough. I'll thank you with some of King David's words since you loved his songs so much." But on my way to the Psalms, my eyes fell randomly on Job 19. I decided to read the whole chapter. It's very vivid, it's all human emotion lashing out at God because its afraid, confused and does not understand. You can almost feel Job's despair, hear his groans, see his tears:
"Pity me, pity me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has struck me. Why do you persecute me as God does, and are not satisfied with my flesh? Oh that my words were written! Oh that they were inscribed in a book! That with an iron stylus and lead they were engraved in the rock forever" Job 19:21-24

When I finished reading these verses, I almost wanted to say "And God granted him his wish!", because thousands of years after Job, I was reading his words in a book. For me the book of Job is like a trial where the prosecution and defense present their cases. In the beginning of the book, you might think Job is the one being judged, that God somehow is playing Job's life in some sort of a dice game. But by the time you finish this book, you realise God was the one being judged. It doesn't matter how many stupid, untrue, unkind things come out of Job's mouth in his suffering and despair, because he asked, God made sure all of Job's words were recorded in a book forever, just because Job wanted this. Is like God didn't even care about His reputation, he granted Job the desire of his heart with the risk of providing ammunition for millions and billions which came after Job and used Job's words against God, to misrepresent Him. In the end God came and defended Job when his friends criticised him and gave Job back far more than what was taken from him: "The LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning" (Job 42:12)

I knew this. What I didn't realise before was the power of a request before God when you refuse to believe he will give up on you. This is what Job declared after he asked for his words to be written in a book: "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" (Job 19:25-27)

I've learnt today something new about God. First, if He doesn't care about His own reputation when it comes to one of our requests, how much more will He not take care of our needs? And second, what I class as 12th hour might not be 12 by God's clock.

I want to thank Him for being my Abba, my Shepherd who takes care of all my needs. And I want to thank Tina for being my big sister today. You cried with me and at the end of the day you laughed with me, like two soldiers who had a good day on the battlefield. May the Lord God of Israel bless you for your love and reward you as only He knows.

"He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)

My colleague, Karen asked me today to ask God to help us win the lottery. I told her I did. She said I should insist (I think Karen is fed up with shopping at Tesco:-)) Karen then said that it would be nice not to have the worry about money anymore. Yeah, it would be nice, but as I told Karen, there are certain things I could never learn if God would hand me the winning lottery ticket (don't worry, Karen, I'll carry on praying). And today's lessons are precious to me. Money can be taken away from me, but I will never forget that on this day I've asked again for my Shepherd to meet my needs and He did.