An Abundant Life Illustration

It Happened Last Spring.

The abundant life is a relationship. I am going to illustrate with a personal story how this relationship can work. The illustration will appear trivial, but there is nothing trivial in a relationship. When a guy opens the car door for his sweetheart it is not trivial. When she cooks his favorite meal or they hold hands while walking through the park, these are not trivial acts. They are relationship in action.

One night in the early Spring, I went with my spouse to watch my grandson play baseball. The temperature was in the low fifties, and there was a strong breeze; certainly not baseball weather. When the game ended, Andrew was cold and hungry, and my wife and I took Andrew and his sister Anna to a restaurant for some hot food. It just so happened that this was a Saturday night and the restaurant was full as was the parking lot. This, however, was the place we all wanted to go, and we decided to proceed and trust that God would make the way smooth (Luke 3:5). As we drove our automobile into the crowded lot we noticed that a car was backing out of a parking place , which just so happened to be right in front of the door to the restaurant. We took that place, which was very fortunate for us, because none of us had jackets. After all, we had been to a baseball game.

When we walked into the restaurant there were several people sitting around the front, so we gave the hostess our name and asked how long the wait. The hostess replied with a smile, “I have a booth that has just opened. If you will give us a minute to clean it, you can have it.” As the old gospel song states, Spiritual Power will “make the crooked straight and bring the high places down.” It certainly happened for us that cold Saturday night in the early Spring.

I know that the above example in no way compares with the problems people face when raising a family or running a business. Besides, most readers will believe that the convenient parking place was no more than a coincidence. And it well may have been. Some would say that we just experienced a bit of good luck? You bet we did! But believers who are living the abundant life experience a lot of good luck. In fact, this is God’s style. As someone has said, “Great art conceals the artist,” and God is an artist at doing good things for believers and making their life more abundant. Every time you utilize Spiritual Power, most of the good things that happen to you will seem like “good luck.”

Spiritual Power is never obvious, but it is always possible and always appropriate. Even though a parking place in the close proximity of a restaurant on a cold Saturday night is totally unimportant on the grand scheme of world affairs, it was very important to me and my family, and God could have been involved. Just as God could be involved in preventing a believer from catching a cold when a friend sneezes a bad time or when a believer drives his/her automobile onto the freeway and narrowly misses a drunk driver coming down the wrong side of the ramp.

God wants to be involved in the life of believers. As we shall discuss in a later blog, “Gods Program of Abundance” functions best when God is continuously allowed to play a part. The abundant life that God wants believers to enjoy is actually little more than the extension of God’s love in a very practical and helpful way. You can expect to experience good luck in little things and also in big things. God wants to keep you free from all of the negative distractions that can make your life appear perplexed and unproductive.

When God does something for you, be it great or small, life changing or totally insignificant, you will probably never know for sure that God was involved. It is not like God to draw attention to God’s self. For example, just look at this marvelous world that God made. It has all we could ever need; light, gravity, resources and beauty in every direction, and yet some very intelligent scientists sincerely doubt that God even exists. God made the world and did it so well that many people actually believe that it just happened on its own or from some “big bang.” As mentioned above, “Great art conceals the artist,” and God can do anything God chooses to empower believers, and no one even suspect that God was the least bit interested.

Keep the Faith,

Earl