Financial needs met
Many years ago, I loaned money to someone, and it began to look as if the loan would not be repaid at all. At that time I owned a one-man heating and air conditioning company, and I needed to be repaid in three weeks’ time in order to meet my business’s end-of-the-month expenses, as well as to pay rent on my apartment.
Time was running out, and I spent several days being afraid that I would be evicted, and being angry at this person who had previously agreed to pay me back. I schemed and plotted how I could make this person pay the debt, but eventually had to admit that I couldn’t solve the problem on my own. There was no apparent solution at hand, and so I humbly asked God to tell me what to do. The answer came back almost immediately: “Forgive.” I saw this message could have two meanings: to forgive the debt and to give up my anger at this person. To be sure I covered all aspects of this message, I worked on both meanings.
As I prayed to see what was really going on, it became clear to me that nothing could stand between me and the infinite goodness flowing to me from God. This infinite goodness is what really sustains, preserves, and blesses me, and it was mentally given and received. That evening I was moved to phone this person and to tell them I forgave the debt and they were to think of the money as a gift. This person thanked me, and although they did not offer to repay me, I knew I could trust God to care for my needs.
As I hung up the phone, it immediately rang again. The call was from a manager with whom I had worked on some projects several years earlier. He had been given a residential remodel-and-addition project to manage and needed someone to design and construct the heating and air conditioning system. He was pondering whom he could contact when my name came to him “out of the blue.” I enthusiastically agreed to meet him early the next day at his office.
The next morning, I looked over the architectural plans and gave him an estimate of what the design and construction of the heating and air conditioning system would cost. He told me that my bid was well within the project’s budget, and an hour later I produced a set of mechanical drawings and was given a contract to sign, and a check for half of the contract amount—almost the same amount I had loaned out. I almost always contracted commercial projects that took 30 days of work to generate an invoice, and then 60 more days to collect the money owed. To be given a check the first day of the project was highly unusual for me, and exactly what I needed.
After I finished the project and collected the remaining half of the contract money, I was able to pay for all the equipment and material for the project, with a little bit of money left over. The project manager got his project finished on time and on budget. The house owner got a reliable heating and air conditioning system for a fair price. Everyone won.
Before this experience, my company cash flow and workload came in peaks and valleys that were difficult to manage. But now I had seen significant proof that I could trust God to care for me in every way, and from that point on, the peaks and valleys evened out. When I decided to leave the construction business and become a full-time Christian Science practitioner, the financial transition took place without problems. I knew that all supply comes from God and is made manifest in our experience as we trust Him to care for us. As we sincerely trust God’s provision, we find that our needs are met abundantly.
Douglas Sytsma
Denver, Colorado, US
