God is So Good

Psalm 24:1-2
“The earth is the LORD’s, and all its fullness,
The world and those who dwell therein.
For He has founded it upon the seas,
And established it upon the waters.

We had a wonderful day of worship today when we met together at church. My Sunday school class is working through the book of Revelation, and our teacher truly has the gift of teaching. What a blessing this class is. Today we were reading about the church at Ephesus and how it had a sound orthodoxy but had left its first love. I was convicted that I am very prone to that. I know proper theology; when I don’t know the answers, I know to look for them them in the Bible; and when I'm unsure, I know to rest in the authority of God's word. I want to live a holy life, but I lose sight sometimes in the midst of the tyranny of the everyday that I want the passion of my life to be to see and savor Jesus Christ. I want my motive to be to worship Him in spirit and in truth. I want to consciously see Him for the beautiful savior He is. So the lesson was very appropriate to my heart today.

Then in the worship service, the music lifted our hearts to our Savior in a real way today. And pastor led us in worship through the preaching of the Word. Again, this sermon was very appropriate to my own need today, though I didn’t realize just how much at first. His sermon was titled, “Now a Word From the Owner,” in which his main scripture focus was Psalm 24:1-2, but he used many other scriptures to support his points that God is the Creator, Sustainer and owner of everything, and we are stewards charged with being faithful with His provision and making much of Christ in the lives we are given. The Lord really spoke to my heart today and I once again want to be faithful to remember that I am His, I am bought with a price, and He will guide me and sustain me in this life until He brings me safely home to be with Him forever. What a good God we serve!

I’m thankful for that sermon. It was great before I even realized that it was great heart preparation for what we found after church.

Someone broke out the passenger side window and stole my purse, which I had been stupid enough to leave in the car, while we were in church this morning. The look on my son’s face as he stared in disbelief at the shattered window made my heart stop until I got over there and saw what he and Drew were looking at. And then I realized my purse was gone. My friend loaned me her phone and I called the bank to cancel my debit card - someone had already tried it at the nearest ATM but had been locked out when they didn’t know the PIN number. Another friend came over and hugged me and prayed with us that whoever did this would be found, but more importantly would turn from crime to Christ. I confess I wish I had more of her attitude, I’m ashamed that wasn’t my first thought. Drew called the police, some friends graciously offered to take our kids to lunch, some sweet men from the church stayed with us until the police had come and taken our statements and examined and photographed the car, and then those same sweet men helped us sweep out most of the glass and sweep it up from the parking lot.

I am very thankful, too, that while the police were still there, Drew called about another credit card and found that the person had just 15 minutes before tried to use it at a couple of nearby stores and managed to buy $87 worth of merchandise, then got the card locked when they were dumb enough to come back and try to get cash out but, again, didn’t know the PIN. So one of the policemen was able to zip off quickly and talk to those stores. Maybe this will enable them to catch the person - apparently they’ve been trying to for a few months.

All in all, we were able to cancel everything before they got any more money from us. It could have been much, much worse. My keys were in the purse, too. They could have taken the car. Drew changed the locks on the house this afternoon, and I’ll have to get a new driver’s license and debit card and military ID, and we’ll have to replace the glass on the window, but thankfully I only had about $5 in cash in the purse and nothing else worth much of anything. Bet they’re wishing they’d picked someone with money to rob.

All in all, God protected us and provided for us in so many ways today, with friends who stood with us and helped us, a worship service and sermon that prepared our hearts to look to Him, and bank card protections that blocked the person from cleaning out our checking account or maxing out our credit card before we found out there was a problem. And I'm thankful for the lesson learned, too, that because I feel so safe most of the time I forget often that we live in a city that still has a pretty high crime rate, and we need to be careful not to do dumb things about which we know better. Not that my leaving my purse gave anyone a right to break my car window and take my purse, but it wasn't a wise thing for me to do, either.

God is so good, so kind, all the time.