I Have Just Seen Jesus – March ’06

Imagine with me for a moment: you are a married man, with a wife and two very young children to care for, working with an organization that doesn’t give you paycheck, you simply trust God to provide for you through the giving of other Christians in a country in which only about 1% of the population believes in Christ , and you live year after year, with never an extra penny, never ever having extra money to call “”your own”” for more than 10 years, often checking your account to find that there is no money at all, even that you are in debt to your organization, you’re in the negative, and you’re wondering how your family will eat, or how you will pay the rent, “”forced”” into absolute dependence on Christ to provide everything, month after month, year after year.Then suddenly one day, after years of constant praying and calling upon God’s faithfulness to provide for your family, you check your account to find that someone has heard about your ministry, and has felt lead to give you the equivalent of more than 1o months worth of financial support for your entire family! The money is there – in your account – it’s ALL YOURS! God has answered! For the next 10 months, all your expenses for you and your family are completely taken care of! Praise God! Praise God!

But in the midst of your praise, you think of the other Thai people whom you work with – they are in the same position you have been in for years, they depend on God for their support too – and almost 90% of them have negative accounts like you have had for years and years. You know them, their love for God, their faith in Him, their prayers of dependence for Him to provide for them as well, and yet the money to cover you and your family for almost one year has come to you! Not them. What do you do?

This is the story of a staff person here in Thailand recently – Ohm. Ohm recently discovered that a supporter gave him enough money to take care of his family for almost one year, to completely cover all of his expenses for his family, but at the same time, Ohm considered the situation of his brothers and sisters in Christ. Do you know what Ohm did? Regarding them above himself, he took every penny of that huge sum of money and gave it all away – every bit – to the others who needed it – not more than he did, most of the others don’t even have families to take care of, but he gave it to them anyway, regarding their needs as more important than his own.

And now, his bank account is negative again. But, his trust is not in his bank account or in any person who gives him anything. His trust is in God Himself, and God is the One who is faithful to provide for all His needs. His bank account his negative, but his bank of joy inside is full with the joy that is only Christ’s, and that comes from glad surrender, obedience, and dependence on Christ. Ohm has been able to freely rejoice with many other staff over God’s provision for them as well – as most of them don’t have a clue where the money came from. He didn’t let hardly anyone know, he quietly transfered the money into many accounts, and sat back and enjoyed hearing staff after staff praise God saying, “”Thank God for His provision for me! I don’t know what person this money came from, but I praise God that it truly came from Him!””

I was rocked by this story of God’s working through Ohm. I am light-years away from this kind of faith and love for others, and have just had to sit back and praise God for what He has done through Ohm and ask that He may grow me up to follow after Ohm’s example.