Faith

I met a grumpy lady a couple of weeks ago that made me think about how our God answers prayer.
In Honduras, a friend from the church in Los Pinos asked me to build a house for an old lady that lived on the mountain and was either confined to a wheelchair or bed. I never saw her out of her bed but, I did see a picture of her in a wheelchair. All that doesn’t matter, what does matter is how we don’t always see opportunities to serve in ways that we think we should. Let me explain –
After the group finished construction of the house for the old lady, I went into her old place to see how she was doing and how she liked her new house. I’d never in 6 years and 150 houses met anyone that was unhappy after they just had a new house handed to them - Built by TORCH & Courtesy of the God of this Universe. There is always a first for everything and this woman taught me a lesson about faith – even though it made me agitated at first and very uncomfortable. As I walked into the rook where this little woman lived, the smell was pretty foul. If you have been on the mountain of Los Pinos, you know that there aren’t many bathrooms and since this woman was confined to the bed, she used her room and the smell of that was there. Anyway, once I got past the smell, I asked her about the house and she began to talk. She talked and talked and the more that she talked, the more she asked for. She wanted food – specific kinds of food like chicken & fish & fresh fruit & potatoes & lots of other foods. She wanted a new bed and a new mattress and other things too. I’m not great at Spanish but, I well understood that she had in the period of about 5 minutes of nonstop talk – listed everything that she could think of to make her life more comfortable. At first thought, I was a little disappointed that this little lady was not all that happy with the new house and had the nerve to ask for more. Later in the day, I thought and thought about this list and realized that this woman was expressing her faith by telling me her needs. After all, if she had prayed about a new house and God delivered it through my group, then isn’t it an expression of faith to tell God’s servant her other needs? Of course it is. She must have known the words that James – the brother of Jesus gave us when he said how faithless it would be to deny this woman her needs if we had the resources to provide for her. She had the faith to ask and to expect God to deliver through us.
I just gotta build on the faith that everybody that God sends to me with needs won’t always be happy and pleasant. I likely wouldn’t be the happiest camper in the world either if I were in her shoes – except she didn’t have any shoes. She did get her new bed, and as much of the food list as I could find.
Our God is good... all the time!
Marc