A good reason to create a blog

As much as I fought against the idea of creating a blog, praising God was a good reason to do it. I don't praise God enough, so I hope that this blog helps me--and anyone reading--praise him more.

Starting out, most of my posts will probably be personal reasons I have to praise God. With time, I hope that I'll pray more for other people and share praises that have to do with other people's lives, too.

Praise God!
A couple nights ago as I was trying to fall asleep, I was listening to a sermon by Bill Johnson, and in the sermon he said (para-phrasing from my imperfect memory) that if we believe God when he tells us what his will is--even when our knee-jerk reaction is to think that it's impossible--then we get to receive miracles from God by his grace.

I thought, "Wow, that's incredible but so true. Look at salvation: Jesus offers to forgive us of all of our sins if we believe in his sacrificial death & resurrection and declare him as our Lord." Breaking it down -- Salvation through Jesus is God's will. We believe God at his word and exercise our faith. Then we receive the miracle of salvation by his grace. It's incredible but true.

Then, I heard the Spirit say, "I'm going to give you $500 tomorrow." At first, I was shocked--eyes wide and mouth open. Despite my shock, I believed that he could do it and thought, "Ok yeah, that would be awesome." Before I fell asleep, I started to think that I had suggested the idea of God giving me $500 to him rather than the Spirit speaking that idea on his own. I fell asleep, and didn't think about what I had heard until the next day.

The following afternoon, my friend John called me to catch up and see how things were going with me. During the conversation, he asked about my job situation and support-raising. I told him how the process was going and that I was still a long ways from meeting my budget. John then told me that he and his fiancee Kirsten (another friend of mine) wanted to give to the work I was doing and said that they wanted to give me $500.

"No way!!!" I said to John. The encounter with God from the night before popped into my head. "God told me last night that he was going to give me $500 today!" We laughed and talked a little while longer, but inside I was in silent awe at what had happened. Things like this have not happened to me very often, but God is in the business of doing miraculous, loving things.

How is something like this possible? Who could have done it? No one but God.