All week I've been fasting and praying for a particular area in my life. With good intentions and sober thoughts I've gone to God in prayer. All week God has blessed me to see things differently. Through these blessings, in spite of a long week my attitude has been great. I've felt more connected to God this week than I have in a long while. Even my bible study time has been different. I've found myself yearning for God's presence and his word. All seemed to be going well until.....
After a night of back-to-school night for my oldest daughter I found out that she was losing points in a class because she didn't have all the supplies that she needed for all her classes. I told her that after leaving the school that I'd stop pass the local Walmart and pick her supplies up. I had only taken a small amount of money with me and had other items that needed to be purchased. I wasn't expecting the things that she needed to cost as much as they did so I was put in a pretty tight spot. In one basket I had those things that I had deemed as important and in the other basket were those things that were necessary for her. I didn't have enough money to cover everything. I began talking to God and asking him to help me figure things out....I believe that God hears even my faintest cries.
I'd taken more time in the store than I should have because I was determined that I was going to get every item on my list. After searching the same isle several times and counting what I had and comparing it to what I needed I was convinced that it wasn't going to happen. I was just a few dollars short. I didn't doubt for one second that God didn't or wouldn't answer my prayer I just decided that I'd help him in the process. One of the items that I wanted cost 97 cents but it didn't have enough of what I wanted in it's packaging. The same product that carried more in its packaging cost almost three times more and I simply didn't have it. However, on a shelf right next to all this stuff lied a package of the 97 cent item in a bulk package that one of the employees hadn't opened before placing on the shelf. I picked that package up and headed to the self-check in the store. When I scanned the price of the product it read 97 cents. I knew very well that the price should have been multiplied by 24 (the number of items that were in the package). I kinda sorta asked God for forgiveness because I knew I was about to steal. I'd even planned on going through the self check out to make sure that the correct bar code would be scanned but they were all closed. I even became a little upset but took my chances at allowing the cashier to ring my items up.
In the line that I'd chosen, stood an older lady who had some items to ring up for a price that she'd felt was incorrect and this caused the cashier to have to leave her register and run to the back of the building to do run a price check (remember I'm in Walmart). Others became impatient and didn't have any problems expressing it. All the while I'm feeling guilty and wishing that the item not ring up correctly. I'd even rehearsed in my head how I'd apologize and act as if I didn't know.
When the cashier returned others behind me were mad and she was tired. I was pitifully and patiently waiting to do something that I already had began to regret. It was then my turn. She began sliding my items down the belt and ringing them up one by one. I still had time to stop her but.......beep....... "thank you ma'am your total is"........the item had rang up for the 97 cents after all.
All the way home I apologized to God but he never spoke back to me. It was pretty late when I arrived home so I placed the items on the counter in a way that my daughter would find them in the morning for school. I could hear her the next morning commenting on how many of the same items that I'd purchased. I said nothing. What I'd done made me feel so bad and ashamed that I skipped a morning prayer session that I had arranged and kept with ease all week with God. When I reached my designated time for fasting and praying I began my prayer with words of forgiveness. "Lord, I'm sorry. As usual, I allowed my old ways to interfere with my new. Yes. God I trust you to supply all my needs yet, I continue to do things on my own. I believe you Lord to be all that you say that you are but God today I pray my my unbelief"......
God is not in the business of taking back. I felt as if I'd sold a weeks worth of his blessings for 97 cents.
I know to some this is too much word for such a little sin but I know that in God's eyes all sins are great. When you (and you will) stumble along your journey on earth don't make yourself distant from God. Your going to need him when you decide that you want to get back up!
Mark 9:24
Proverbs 3:5-6
Mathew 7:7-11 and/or Luke 11:9-13
Romans 7: 14-25
