a good place to bike…a bad place to lose a phone.

On Sunday morning we talked about faith & sacrifice. We looked at the story from 1 Kings 17 where a widow is asked to give the last of her food to Elijah & then God will provide for her. Now, most of us are not dealing with drought or famine anytime soon, but practically we all need to learn to trust & rely on God.

The thing is, there are so many followers of Christ who don’t really know how to do that…because they have never had to. If we are going to trust God for “big” things…i.e. I take NyQuil, rather than pray for my cold, but if I get cancer…now I’ll pray! The problem is, since we haven’t seen God move in smaller things (given Him opportunity is more accurate), our faith to see him deal with this big thing, is not where it could be.

So how do we give him an opportunity in small stuff? For me, money has always been a way God has used to develop faith. Trusting Him to provide when it doesn’t make sense. This morning I got another lesson…with my phone.

I was riding my bike on the South Hill Recreation Trail. And I took my phone…this way if I do something stupid like fall down a hill, or smash into a tree, I call Liz to come to get me. About 2 miles into a 6-mile ride (3 miles each way) I checked the time on my phone. At three miles in, I went to check the phone again & it was gone.

So I slowly rode back where I last saw it. Not there. So I decided I’d walk the last mile back & forth & look. I was already a bit late in getting my morning started, so this was a bit frustrating. After about 100 yards I had this sense that I should give up & trust God. I wrestled with that for a few more steps, turned around, got on my bike & headed home.

About a half mile later, I saw an older couple walking their dog. Although talking to people I don’t know isn’t a fun thing for me, I decided that when I got close enough I would stop & ask if they had seen it. Before I could, say anything, she asked if I had lost my phone!

Now, if I had walked my bike all the way back to the end of the trail, slowly looking for my phone…& then walked back looking for it. I likely would have bumped into these two people eventually…I would have lost at least another 30 minutes and had a bit of stress & frustration too. But I might have found it on my own.

Again, this was a small thing…not a biggie. But it mattered to me….& because of that, I believe it mattered to God. He wanted to bless me & I just needed to let him. I could have likely found the phone on my own. This was better.