Growing in Faith
Many times I feel like the father in Mark 9:24 who says, ““I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” A lack of faith is usually directly related to a high need for control. For me, I like having a plan, and I struggle when the plan doesn’t work out as I have anticipated. But God continually amazes me as He stretches my faith in every area of my life. And I’m learning that God’s plan is always better than my own.
On Christmas day at Cornerstone, we took up a love offering for our local Free Medical Clinic. As a church, we wanted to match the gift, so we encouraged everyone for several weeks that we would be collecting this on Christmas day. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be very much. There were lots of reasons why I was anxious about the gift. We didn’t know how many people would come to church on Christmas morning, our love offerings have historically been low, and our area has been hit hard by job loss over the past few years. What happened next simply amazed me.
After we counted everything that was collected and mailed in, we ended up with a $10,000 gift, far beyond my wildest expectations. On top of that, as a church, we found a way to match the gift from our Missions Fund so that the Free Clinic received a total amount of $20,000! They have been struggling financially, so this was a huge gift for them. I am beyond excited about the generosity of our church, and I am happy that we are able to help support such a great local ministry.
The embarrassing part is that I really had no expectations that we would receive an offering this large, or even that we could match it. But God worked everything out perfectly. And here’s the really amazing part, our regular offering at church on Christmas was the highest one day offering in our history. My faith is being stretched and I am learning to trust God completely. I stand amazed!