Sparks Ministry

When I was working on my business major at Covenant College, I learned about “just in time” inventory.  I think that most companies now use this approach because it means that (ideally) you don’t have to carry a bunch of inventory on hand.  You get your supplies as you need to use them in production, hence the “just in time” title.  Of course, the risk is that you get stuck without essential supplies when you need them.  That’s why companies that do this must have good relationships with their suppliers.

I think that God often works with us on a “just in time” basis.  He doesn’t give us all we need weeks before we will need it.  He often doesn’t give us that safety cushion that we wish He would provide.  On the other hand, He always gives us what we need by the time we need it.  There’s an old saying that God is rarely early but always on time.

Anyway, we recently experienced some “just in time” encouragement.  We had hoped that our house would sell before the tax credit expired at the end of April.  (Yes, that was an ambitious hope, but we’re like that sometimes!)  When it not only didn’t sell, but we didn’t even have one person look at it over the last weekend in April, we were discouraged.  At the same time we were looking at our support account and wondering if we would be able to have the funds to cover the training we wanted to take in June.  If we didn’t go in June, our next chance would be September.  We just weren’t sure what the best decision was and we were discouraged that the finances were so close.

Well, God met us “just in time” in a couple of surprising ways!  As you know if you receive our email updates, one of our donors called us and offered to match any donations given to our support account during the months of May and June.  This was completely unexpected and reminded us that God will provide for us.  We had made the decision a couple of days before to register for the June conference and trust that God would provide.  He didn’t even make us wait very long to show us His provision in an amazing way!

Our house is still on the market and we haven’t had any new lookers in a couple of weeks.  However, we went out of town that last weekend in April in order to leave the house open and to visit Southside Community Church in Corpus Christi.  A couple of days after our donor contacted us about the matching gift, we got an email from a couple who was visiting Southside the week we were there and who said they sensed God telling them to start supporting us with monthly contributions.  Just in time, God confirmed that our decision to travel that weekend was what He wanted us to do.

The entire support raising process is full of ups and downs.  It is definitely a time where God builds our faith and makes us trust in His provision.  The project is so much bigger than what we can do on our own and it forces us to depend on God.  That is a habit we need to develop on so many levels!  Praise the Lord that he always meets us just in time .