The God of Crazed Chipmunks

Our house exceeded its budget and its timeline. But it also exceeded expectation like whoa! Sitting in our house on our couch, we would look up in the evening and admire this masterfully crafted bush house and be so overwhelmed that we had to verbalize for the umpteenth time how much we loved our new home.

See, the plan was, we would throw some sticks together and build a place to live for a couple of years and during our home assignment, we would raise money for a permanent residence. This residence would be "Americanized", meaning we would purchase and ship in milled timber, masonite (you can't use drywall here because it's too humid), and flooring. When you consider that we get in and out of the village via helicopter that can only carry about 700lbs, and each helicopter is $1600, just the transport of materials amounts to a pretty penny.

But looking at this magnificent bush house… We don't want an Americanized house. And so while this house ran us about $22,000, waaaay more than expected, we've spent waaaaaaaaaay less than we would have.

Now raising money to pay off a debt is a lot less attractive than raising money to build missionaries a home, but we could breathe a little easier knowing that, in the end, we actually saved money.

You may remember than I did not initially respond gracefully to our financial predicament. But I rested easy now. Because if I could trust God to raise A TON of money for an Americanized home, I could certainly trust Him to raise a portion of that for my exquisite bush home!

But my Lord my God is proud as only He has a right to be, and raising less money doesn't display His power and faithfulness in quite the same way.

So He did something that truly displayed His power.

We received this message when we got back from town.

"[We] did some serious praying about giving because we knew God was asking for more than what makes our little human selves comfortable. We think you guys are doing really amazing work and we are so proud to know you! God made it clear to us that we should pay off your house for you so we are. … We really are just being obedient to God (and we were honestly pretty slow to do that). If it was up to me, I would hoard all of our money like a crazed chipmunk. God made it clear that we needed to give and give sacrificially, so we are. All credit goes to the One who makes the plans."

It was accompanied by a gift of $22,000.

How mighty is the God who can lead a crazed chipmunk to give away his treasures?

How mighty is the God who moves to equip one of His children with what another one needs AND! AND! who cultivates an environment, The Church, a body of believers who shuns the norms of this world and does things crazy and countercultural like giving $22,000 away?

How mighty is the God who grows my faith?

How mighty is the God who provides for my needs?

How mighty is the God who grows generosity past the comfort of our little human selves?

How mighty is the God who turns this world on its head?

How mighty is the God who inspires humans to turn on their sinful nature, to spit on egotism and embrace the efforts of the Kingdom even if there's a price to pay, even if that price hurts?

How mighty is the God who came to earth to pay the ultimate price to take His Kingdom back, to take us back?

Praise God. Glorify His name. Let nothing He's done go uncredited to Him.

 "All credit goes to the One who makes the plans."