I don’t normally write about blessing someone else. I’d rather share about the Father or something I see in the Word. But I make exception here only to show a principle in motion in real life from a different prospective.

Most of the time I read about people who say someone paid my grocery bill while in line at the store or at a restaurant where someone paid my tab. You know. Things like that.

I grew up poor and unable to do things I wanted to do and was always scrounging coins together to get something I wanted. It made me selfish in a way, because I had already seen other people seemly with little or no effort get what they wanted. Being the oldest son of a tobacco farmer, I was put to work at the age of seven. My only pay was a roof over my head and a plate of food on the table. My first paying job was working in tobacco on someone else’s farm. But my first real paying job off the farm was driving a school bus while in high school.

Okay. Enough of the rabbit trail. Suffice to say, I was selfish.

Fast forward to now. Over the last few years there has been attempts to hobble me with circumstances, yet even in that God has provided a home, vehicles to drive and a good job. Now I’m retired, draw my Social Security check, a very small pension and once again drive a school bus for the local school system.

But here’s what I’m getting at. God has never, ever, never let me down. I have not had to live in the street or go without. Numbers of times over my walk I’ve seen God fill a need with hardly any trepidation that God’s provision would be limited. I’ve learned to loosen my purse strings and I’ve invested several thousands of dollars to one in particular and have concluded that God has spoken to even forgive them for that debt and release them from it. That’s been a hard thing to comprehend and I’m about settled with that.

So, why am I writing this? To give you an example that belonging to God’s family will give you pause to reflect on the fact that when you give, you can’t out give your Father.

Now, here is the example. It kind of caught me off guard, but my wife and I were in the store picking up a few items before going home from a long day after church and a memorial service of a dear friend. We got in line in the checkout and the lady in front of us was about checked through. She had her two grandchildren with her and the two children and I was bantering about child stuff. All the while I found I had moved in front of the card reader and the grandmother was wanting to pay her bill. My wife calls to me to move so the woman could pay her bill. But instead, I was standing there with my wallet in my hand and without hesitation, I pulled my debit card out and put it into the card reader and proceeded to pay her bill. She protested of course, but I refused to let her do so. I had absolutely no qualms about doing a good deed for this lady. She thanked me and went on her way.

So, you say, you did a good thing. But here’s the rest of the story. The principle of sowing and reaping took into motion. By seven thirty that evening I was paid for an item I had for sale. I had just put it in the yard sale page on FB and didn’t really think it would be so sought after. I had fifteen people wanting it, but most wanted to give me less than I was asking. It’s typical of such sales talk. But for the second time in about a year this happened. The person who came to the house, bought the item and paid me more than I was asking. You call that rare. I call that God. It was for more than that grocery bill. But it doesn’t stop there. Today I went out to the mailbox and in all the stuff I pulled out there was a check for about two thirds of what that grocery bill was. In all God brought back to me in less than a day more than double what that grocery bill was.

You might disagree with me and say it was a return on something I had for sale, but I tell you I disagree. I’ve tried to sell stuff many times and ended up with no takers and what I was selling wasn’t anything out of the ordinary or as I said was talked down from the asking price, but God had a bidding war going on over those items and I got more than anticipated.

Like I said, You can’t out give God. If you think you can, give it a try. It never hurts to give to those in need or to just plain out be nice to someone.