Mindless Juices

So, I was brought into my boss' office today. The expectation on me has been raised... because my salary has been raised!!! Yes, God has provided. I think it inappropriate to publicize how much I make or how much of a raise, but the important thing isn't how much. It is that God answered a prayer that we weren't all too happy praying. Most of the time (including this one), your money problems are your fault and the lesson God wants you to learn is good stewardship. I think He usually let's you flounder in your own mess until you decide to do something about it. Even then, He doesn't necessarily do too much other than prevent you from getting in over your head, even if it may feel like it. We've basically been broke thanks to adoption stuff and some poor stewardship on my part. On the first note, I hope that is the reason my hard work has been blessed by this unexpected gift of a raise. On that second note, I'm surprised my wife hasn't kicked me off of the money handling and taken over. However, as stated before, I'm really trying to refocus on the important things. One of them being good stewardship. Here's the thing: Our small group seems to have a lot of prayer power. A lot of the prayer requests in our small group have been being answered in very obvious ways. Sometimes, God's timing or ways aren't exactly clear to us, but lately, He seems to be taking a more simplistic approach in our lives. A sort of, "Ask and you shall receive." It's been great to see our good friends blessed over the past few weeks as one couple found a house and moved in with relative ease... another's mother seemed to pull a 180 out of depression and into joy and happiness... ministry areas are moving along nicely and the church is growing and changing lives. God is good... (go ahead, finish it, you know you want to!) So, the first order of business in being a good steward is to adjust our tithe. The second is the continue to make the most of this gift we've been given. It means I'll be eating tuna and PB&J for a little while longer. It means I'll probably still cancel my subscription to GameTap. It means, I need to continue to work hard at both the job and my family. The latter deserves more of me than I've given in a while.