Happy Hanukkah!

I have had the privilege this season to have hired and worked with a young Jewish lady; a student at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. I also hired her roommate, and close friend who is an Evangelical Christian, and a Worship Leader at her church. That must be an interesting household!

Our discussions during this Christmas season have often gone to the Jewish Hanukkah festival, and some of the interesting customs associated with it. There is a marvelous story associated with the original Hanukkah time. While there is dispute among some "scholars" as to whether this story is true, it is widely accepted among Jewish people, and I choose to accept it myself. It seems that when the followers of the Maccabees set about purifying and rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem after it had been defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes, they found that there was only one day’s worth of the sacred oil necessary to keep the lamps burning. It would take eight days to properly prepare a new supply of the oil. The one day supply of the oil was caused by God to miraculously last throughout this eight day period until the new oil was ready!

This is not totally unlike the story I read this morning in 1 Kings 17: 10-16. This is the story where Elijah meets a woman who has only enough oil and flour to last for one more meal. She obeys what the Lord tells her to do through Elijah, and prepares a meal first for Elijah from what she has left, and then for herself and her son. Miraculously, her oil and flour lasted indefinitely as she continued to feed Elijah, as well as herself and her son.

In my last post, I talked about how God has provided for all my needs according to His riches in glory (Philippians 4:19). It occurs to me as I reflect on the Hanukkah story, and on the story of Elijah, that God does indeed provide for us. He most often does this, not by giving us more of what we think we need, but by making what we have enough!

I think that this extends not only to material things, but to the spiritual things as well. I often feel like I don’t have enough talent, or knowledge, or confidence, or whatever, to do a particular thing. In the end, if it is His will, and I am led by His Spirit; what I have, together with what He brings into the equation is enough.

Happy Hanukkah! Remember the miracle of the oil!

Thanks for sharing this moment with me today.

A Giant Step Forward!

"Going Forth in The Name" (the book) took a giant step forward last month. It seems to be a "God thing" that happened. Here’s how it went down: in the Spring of 2007, when I got back to Adventureland, the book was about half finished. Early in the season, Jack and Karen Gregory, Charles and Mary Snyder, and I got together one evening at the rec hall to share what we had been doing over the winter, and to pray together about the coming season at the park. During the course of the discussion, I mentioned that I was starting to think about selecting a publisher, and I asked everyone to pray for me in that selection process.

Sometime in the next week a brochure arrived from Xlibris publishers. The odd thing was, first, that it was hand-addressed, rather than the usual mail-merge type label, and was addressed to me at the campground address, rather than my Sioux Falls mailing address. To my knowledge, I am not on any mailing lists for anything connected to my writing, at any address other than Sioux Falls. At least, this is the only direct mail advertising item I have ever received in Altoona that was connected to writing. This in itself caused me to take notice. As Jack said when I told him about it: "Hello; telephone!"

Xlibris had all the services that I wanted, and the price was right. Moreover, the presentation made by their brochure was one that was professionally done, and that inspired confidence in their ability to produce a high quality product for the money.

As usual, I had underestimated the amount of progress that I would make over the next few months, and I had no reason to get publishing services at that time. I made occasional visits to the Xlibris website, and noticed that they had a "special" nearly every month, when they would either reduce the price of some service, or they would offer an "add-on" for free, or at a reduced cost.

Fast-forward, about a year and a half to the fall of 2008. I am nearly finished with the book (see post, "It is Finished", September, 08), and I am ready to seriously look at publishers. Xlibris is still number one on my list, so I visit their website to see what is going on. I found that they now have a Christian publishing package, with marketing items included that are geared to the Christian market. I talked to a representative who informed me that the Christian Novice package was reduced by $50 that month.

Then began my annual "work marathon", a little earlier this year, and I really didn’t have the time to pay attention to publishing. Frankly, $50 was not compelling enough for me to jump in, and tie up that money at that time. You might say that I was "prevented by the Holy Spirit" from going ahead. At the beginning of November, I visited the website, and found it announcing that "Christmas is early this year" and that they were offering all of their publishing packages, including my Christian Novice package, at 50% off! It kind of reminded me of the story in Acts 16:6-10. Anyway, now they had my attention and I purchased the publishing package.

In just a little over a week, I will get my life back from See’s Candy, and we will travel to the Rio Grande Valley. I am looking forward to getting the finishing touches done and getting the book off to Xlibris, where they can do their thing with it. This is an exciting time!

God is so good!

This story is just one of many about how He has provided. I did something last week that I did not think I would ever do again in my lifetime; I bought gas for $1.21! We are in the "battle zone" of a gas war here in Sherwood, Arkansas. Gas has gone up a little in the last few days from that low level, but it is still a dollar less than it was when we arrived here in October, and is fully half of what it was when we left Des Moines in the Fall. Right now, prices are about 30% less than they were when we went to the Valley in ‘06-’07!

I don’t know how many times I have sat down to try to make a budget in the past decade, and found that there was no way that I had enough money to pay for everything, yet the money was always there when it came time, with always enough left over to share in ministry!

"My God will supply all [my] need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus"

(Phillipians 4:19, NKJV)

Thanks for sharing this moment with me today.