Yesterday was our church wide day of prayer & fasting, from sun-up to sundown. Some of the things that transpired the last few days came together for me yesterday.
This past fall, the ladies of the church went to the Women of Faith Conference. When I had pre-ordered the 26 tickets, I thought for sure that I would be returning some. All 26 tickets were used. So at the conference, I pre-ordered tickets for this year’s conference (November 2-3, 2012 for anyone that could possibly be reading & desiring to come with us), increasing the number of tickets. Only one problem – I had not increased them by enough as all have now been spoken for!!!!
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV).Â
I have been amazed & astounded by a God, Who sees what my finite & feeble mind can think, and then does even MORE. Humbled, I found myself saying,
“What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him.”             (Psalm 8:4 NIV).Â
I love how it is worded in The Message:
“Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?”Â
And a second look, He truly did give my way. For you see, while pre-ordering the tickets this past November for this year’s conference, an interesting thing occurred. Initially, while talking with the rep, I requested 40, yes 40, tickets. That seemed, at the time, to be the number that the Lord had put in my mind. As I walked away from the desk, panic set in.
  “What are you crazy?”
      “You cannot get stuck with all those tickets.”
          “You cannot stick the church with the cost of covering unsold tickets!!”
              “You surely cannot cover the cost of unsold tickets yourself!!!!!!!!!”
And so, I went back & asked them to change the number to 30. And yesterday I had to call my local rep & ask her for 10 more tickets. Yes, now we have 40 tickets in total. Now I know that the number the Lord had put in my mind, “suggested” if you will, was truly the number that the Lord KNEW we would need.
Lessons learned:
- Yes!!! God truly does do immeasurably more than we can ask or think. He desires to do that for us.
The thought that kept going through my head as I made the decision to order more tickets was this:
“O ye of little faith! O ye of little faith! O ye of little faith! Why didn’t you believe?”
- We must believe God. We must. Â
“Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” (John 11:40 NIV).
Let me share the irony of this situation:
The theme of last year’s conference was “Imagine!”
The theme of this year’s conference? “CELEBRATE!”
Truly I could not have imagined that we would need more tickets. And yes, we will be celebrating for sure!!!!! And so the last lesson learned:
- The level of our celebration is directly proportioned to the level we imagine in God. May our faith in Him grow. He is so much bigger than we think. He has so much more for us than we can measure.
***To my church family…..If we will only believe, God is going to do immeasurably more than we can think or even imagine so that we will see the glory of God and to him will be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!
***And to the ladies….there are now 7 tickets for the Women of Faith Conference available. Do not miss out on what God has in store for those that go.
