Thursday, September 25, 2008

Mind -boggling Multiplication

I am having a fishes and loaves moment, actually its been several weeks. It is in a strange area and I think that is what amazes me. I have had the Lord multiply time for me. You know those days when you have more than you can possibly do 24 hours and as you are busily about your work you look at the clock and see that while you have done a day's work, only half a day's time has passed. I have seen the Lord multiply money. On more than one occasion. Money we shouldn't have is sitting in the bank. Things like that. I remember when we moved into our first home and had lots of extra bills with all the fixing up that house needed - 20 years of old carpet and old painted, shabby paneling. We neglected our tithing for a while as the bills mounted. Each month there was just enough to pay the bills and the interest on the credit cards and that debt was slowly, slowly climbing. We decided it was time to stop neglecting the Lord and to trust Him. I remember sitting down that first month to pay the bills and wrote the tithe check first. It was several hundred dollars - about what we paid on the credit cards. I didn't know what I was going to do when I got to the end of the money before I paid that last bill. But I wrote out all the usual checks and then, when I was done, there were several hundred dollars left which I used to pay towards the credit card bill. I am naturally skeptical about such things and considered it some kind of fluke or maybe I had mis-added something along the way or more accurately mis-subtracted, but checking and rechecking showed there was enough money. I was delighted and wondered if it was going to catch up to us somehow the next month. Same thing happened next month and the month after and for several months. Though there was no increase in our income, and no decrease in our bills, somehow we had the extra several hundred each and every month to add tithe to our giving. This continued until the Lord put several large chunks of money into our hands to pay those credit card bills down so the normal payments could pay them off. We learned a very valuable lesson during that time. The power of trust and obedience in the Lord. The trap of indebtedness. The awesome love of a God who still intervenes in the affairs of His children. I am having another one of those strange multiplication times. What is strange to me is what the Lord is multiplying. It all started when we bought a printer for our computer here in Europe. Ours had kicked the bucket so we got a replacement. We found ink to be a lot more expensive here than in the US, so while I was home this summer I bought two multi-packs of ink for the printer. Saved about one hundred dollars and I thought I had purchased enough to last us until our furlough next fall. The problem began when the first cartridge needed replacement. I opened up one of my new ink cartridges and inserted it, only to have my printer tell me it was the wrong number. This ink cartridge is identical in every way to the European ink cartridge, but it does have a different number stamped into the plastic. To my dismay I have found that they have embedded in the cartridge a US and European proprietary code of some sort. I could use my more-than-seventy-dollars-worth of ink in my printer, though it is the same manufacturer and the exact same cartridge. I was stunned and could not believe it. Why, oh why, would anyone bother to do such a thing! I was in the middle of a printing job. In desperation I reinsert the old cartridge. The printer began to print again. I was ecstatic and delighted and grateful to have enough ink to finish this small job. I had more printing to do. As the days go by, it continues to work. Another color runs out and I try the US cartridge again. It doesnt work so I reinsert the old, empty cartidge and the printer prints again. Weeks go by, the third cartridge runs out - black ink this time - I am skeptical so I wonder if I have shaken the old cartidges in some way fiddling with them and that has stirred up ink, so I take the old black cartidge, shake it around vigorously and reinsert it. No go, it doesnt work. I again take the new cartidge and insert it into the machine, get the same error message, then reinsert the old cartridge and it prints again. It has printed and printed and printed. I have printed DVD labels and the every day printing that needs to be done. Weeks of printing with three empty cartridges. I have said it before that the Lord does many wonderful things in my life, but it is the small, unimportant things that amaze me the most. He says He watches over the number of the hairs on our head and that is no metaphor, nor is it hyperbole. His attention to the everyday things in life is true. I know it. I am still utterly amazed.

Mind-boggling Multiplication

Mind -boggling Multiplication