One of the great truths of the Christian faith is that God chooses to bind Himself to us, using mere flesh and blood people to accomplish most of the things He chooses to do on the earth. God seldom does a miracle without finding the hands and feet of a willing human being to manifest His grace. I love the fact that God can and will, use even me to spread His grace, even when I am unaware. This story illustrates that grace in a very fun way.
It was a week before Christmas and a friend who runs the Montessori school where The Oak meets contacted me with the news that she had a case of toys that she wanted to donate to the church and wanted to know if we could we use them. I informed her that I was not aware of any need directly related to our church but that our sister church, Vineyard Community Church, has a warehouse that ministers to the poor and I would gladly take them there.
On the Monday before Christmas my wife and I loaded up the toys into our SUV to take to the warehouse. We had discovered on the previous day that the case of what I thought was used toys, was actually a large plastic bin of new toys of all kinds. I noted that one of the top items was an expensive learning-lab type of toy. So, we loaded up the toys and went off to the warehouse to make our drop off before catching an afternoon movie.
Upon arrival at the warehouse I walked in to find one of the volunteers to leave the toys with. Just inside, I happened to run into the woman who oversees the ministry to those who come to receive food. She conducts services of worship and prayer ministry for the different people that come to receive food at the warehouse. I asked her if she would take the toys; she asked me if they were wrapped. I said “no,” wondering what she meant. She led me into a side room where chairs were set up for a meeting and asked me to leave them there. She said that she would cover them with a blanket to give to the kids when they arrived. I was catching on to the fact that she was about to have a meeting of some kind. After talking to her I discovered that the warehouse had been advertising to the families that they would have free gifts for the children that day, about an hour later than I had arrived.
It started to dawn on me that something has just happened. Here I was walking into the warehouse with a large bin of hundreds of dollars’ worth of new toys, where they had been advertising to the hundreds of families they minister to, that they would be giving away toys and blessings to the children there. God had answered the prayers of the warehouse staff for toys for the children by speaking to the parents in a Montessori school across town to bring toys in for the kids. Over the course of the past year, a lot more toys than had been needed were collected and the Director of the School had sought out a good use for the toys. She turned to me, I thought of the warehouse and God answered the prayers of some faithful warehouse workers with an hour to spare without even breaking a sweat. Wow! After weeping a few tears of joy and calling the Director of the Montessori to tell her what had happened, I thanked God profusely for His gift of perfect provision and perfect timing.