Our Yard Sale

Deuteronomy 15:10
Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.

Deuteronomy 28:12
The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.


***

God truly blessed the work of our hands this weekend. We were really dreading having a yard sale, but knew there was a possibility of raising money toward our trip. So, we sucked it up, and got to work at the last minute. We started gathering things together on Tuesday, I put an ad in the paper on Wednesday to be advertised Friday and Saturday, and we made a mess of our tiny duplex. At times I felt like pulling my hair out. We had to move our HUGE wardrobe outside four times. I was weary.

But in those two days, we raised enough money to put toward our travel clothing as well as a laptop. We are currently waiting on purchasing the laptop, as we are believing for a Macbook, which is what Wesley really needs. When we have down time on the trip, he will need to contribute toward the editing of video footage, and will be unable to do so without a Macbook.

I practiced what the Bible talks about; speaking what you believe to be true. I started speaking that we would sell all of our big furniture for what we were asking. That would round out to be about $500. I knew we desperately needed that money, and didn't expect to gain very much money from the other little things in the yard sale. $500 was my goal. My expectation.

The first piece sold for $25 more than we had asked, because a dear friend of mine contributed extra toward our trip.

But then the buying was at a standstill. I got nervous. I was claiming this, why wasn't God blessing that?

(side note: We humans are so silly sometimes, you know? If things don't go exactly how we think they're going to go, we automatically assume God must be playing a cruel trick on us. If we could only understand God's infinite Love for us!)

A man came by that owns a furniture store, and was wanting to give us $150 for all of the rest of the furniture. This was ridiculously low, but tempting. It was our second day of the yard sale, and we were exhausted from moving things back and forth. Yet we both didn't have a peace about giving this man our furniture for that price, despite the fact that no one else had come by to buy it up. We had only sold the table and chairs that day, but no other furniture. Praise God we listened to His voice, or else we wouldn't have been blessed with what was to come.

We left the furniture out even after the yard sale was over because we didn't want to haul it back inside. And of course, that was in God's plan. One woman came by and immediately put a down payment to hold one of our pieces. Granted, it was $120 less than what we had originally asked, but we had a sale! Then, we had three inquiries within minutes after I prayed that the wardrobe would be sold. We just said goodbye to it a little while ago, and it sold for only $50 less than the asking price.

The amazing thing about this is that the support from the yard sale was almost double what I had for a goal in my mind. We sell God short so often. He desires to bless us, but we don't BELIEVE for it! I am so very guilty of this.

At one point, a lady came inside as I was packing something up for her. She started looking around at our stuff and asked Wesley if we were selling our t.v. He immediately stated that we were, and before we knew it, our t.v. was sold right out from under us, haha! Wesley joked that he is like his grandfather, who once sold his kitchen table right out of his house!

***

God has always blessed my hard work. But I truly cannot do anything apart from Him.

I am a HUGE believer in tithing. I began seriously tithing in high school, but not with the faithfulness Wesley and I have today. My motives to begin with were mostly because I felt it was something I had to do, and I also realized that when I did so, God would always bless my finances. Granted, I might not be filthy rich, but He always supplied my needs and then some. So, I gave to receive a blessing. But this experience has really helped me to realize and understand that it is all HIS. None of it is ours, no matter how much we work for it. And just like Abraham with Isaac, once we give things to God, He will bless our sacrifice and will often give that thing back to us in much better shape than when we gave it to God. I wonder how much that experience with Abraham and Isaac strengthened their relationship that day. I'm sure it made it a million times better, because the father and son left the experience with a greater respect and understanding for each other. Isaac respected and knew his father as someone who would give up his own son to follow God, and Abraham respected and knew Isaac in that he honored both God and his father so much that he would lay down his life.


God has never let me down. How often I let Him down. It's heartbreaking to think about it.

I LIVE for these experiences.