God wants to bless you even if you're on drugs

I certainly hope you’re not. (On drugs, that is.) But there’s a truth so critical here that we have to use this example to get it through our deeply entrenched I-earn-God’s-love-by-my-performance mindset.

Let’s introduce Sara. Sara may or may not be Julie, but I need to keep switching names around or else you’ll know too much. So Sara may or may not be using drugs. I’ll keep that ambiguous too. Sara may or may not be making poor choices. Let’s just say (purely hypothetical) that she’s making poor choices, ok?

So we’ve got hypothetical Sara who has a hypothetical drug problem and is hypothetically making poor choices.

You get the picture, right? Right. So Sara is on every form of assistance there is, but Sara still fell upon some hard times and found herself with no money and some major bills looming ahead. The week before last we talked through this — three bills in particular that were due last week and she had no money to pay them and was panicking about losing her apartment and ending up homeless. (A valid concern.)  With no job, no job history, no driver’s license, no bank account, nothing, there is little chance of money falling down from the sky for this person. Let’s just say no tax returns are coming her way. So we talked through options, various charities she could approach to ask for help. We mapped out a plan for each of the bills, but even though she asked each source, nothing came through.

Finally, last Wednesday we met up at The Father’s Heart, and she explained that she had to pay one bill by that night or she’d be sunk. I knew that I could pay the bill for her, but didn’t want to act until she’d exhausted all options on her own.  At 3pm we spoke on the phone and she was panicking. So I told her we needed to pray to God that He would provide for her to pay her bills. I’ll admit, it felt a little silly, praying together with her on the phone, knowing she was in a deeper mess than I could even fathom, and wondering how (or why) on earth God would provide her money in a matter of hours. Afterwards, I spoke to Jeff and he agreed that we could hire her to clean our house and then pay her bills directly. So at 4pm I called her back. No answer.

5pm. No answer.

Next morning, no answer. Great, I thought. What’s she doing? I wanted to just go and pay her bills for her that afternoon since I knew what they were and how to do it. But as I prayed about it I felt God say, “Just wait.” 

Finally, the next afternoon she answered. I could hardly understand what she was saying as she shouted over the phone, breathless, “I WORKED! I worked! I worked! Someone in Portland knew someone who was doing a painting job and needed help and I went in and I worked! I worked all evening and all this morning and I’m so tired but I worked! And they paid me!”

Long story short, in this one out-of-the-clear-blue painting job, she was paid enough to pay not one, not two, but all three of her bills. Which she did promptly.

What? Really God? Within an HOUR of our praying together you provided all the money she needed? (And yes, we made sure and connected-the-dots so she knew that this was GOD answering our prayers.)

Let me tell you what: God loves to bless you even if you’re on drugs. We have to understand that the God of the universe LOVES you and WANTS to bless you and display His power. We don’t earn his miracles by our merit. We don’t deserve His provision because we’re so perfect. If we believe He only blesses us when we’re doing everything right, we are resting on pride and not on grace. Certainly there are negative consequences for sinful behavior (and Sara is reaping a whole load of those as well), but when we seek Him we will FIND Him and He LOVES to bless our little baby steps of faith.

Miracles aren’t just for missionaries; they’re for the marginalized too. The lost. The addicted. They are for sinners like me and you and all the ones on the fringe — whoever calls on His  name. 

We must kick to the curb this belief that we’re only “eligible” for miracles if our track record is clean.

We’re eligible for miracles because Jesus’ track record is clean. 

That’s the gospel. That’s “the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast.”

That’s good news.

~

{Where do you need to believe and ask God for His provision even though you don’t “deserve” it? How can you rest in knowing you’re eligible for a miracle because of JESUS? How can you celebrate His gift of grace today? How can you extend that grace to others? Thanks for reading.}