Remember

I was asked to come speak at a local church last Sunday. It was a small church. A church that has been in our community for a long time. They do quite a bit to partner with us in our mission in Harvest. And I was honored to be able to spend a little bit of time with them. 

The pastor of that church pulls up at House of the Harvest every Saturday morning. He makes one of our many Publix deliveries each week. It’s not often that you see a pastor out delivering bread for the hungry. Usually they like to save those types of opportunities to serve for their members that “need to get involved.” Jesus was really good about stepping out to serve first. Leading the way from in front, not from above. I love that about my brother from Toney UMC. Humble enough to serve, to the point of delivering bread. Nothing really glorious about it. I would even be willing to bet that  nobody in that room of people that follow his lead every Sunday even knew that he does that each Saturday. It’s the humble that hear the voice of God. 

As I began to speak that morning, it started coming back to me all that God has done at House of the Harvest. It’s really easy to lose sight of how good He has been. It’s really easy to start thinking you actually deserve some credit or that the contributions of so many others are what matters. It’s really easy to be so focused on where you are going that you forget to stop and celebrate where you are compared to where you used to be. It’s just really easy...to just be human, I guess that is the best way to say it. In all of our pride, selfishness, discontent, and so on. It’s really easy to just be human. 

So it was good to revisit how God has used our place to distribute groceries to families in need over 40,000 times. And it was really good to revisit how the same guy dropped the price of that building from $220,000 to $1 in a period of about three months. And it was good to recall stories like the time someone walked in the right side door and asked me for a washing machine and just as soon as I told her we didn’t have one, someone else pulled up with a washing machine in the bed of their truck. And the time I got two phone calls within five minutes of each other, both from people I did not know, one needing an air conditioner and the other donating an air conditioner. And it was really good to revisit the feeling of desperation, knowing that people would be coming to good food in a matter of days, hours even, and then watching God orchestrate it from all over as an answer to our prayers. 

We have been blessed. And it is easy to forget. Take for granted. Fail to appreciate. So it was really good to remember. It really is amazing that it continues to come in and go out every week. Not one Saturday have we run short. We have done it for so long that now you can tell how many people are coming each Saturday based on the size of our pickups from various places in town. He really does control it all. 

But more importantly than all that, are the moments that have changed people’s lives. Like the time a lady told me House of the Harvest was the only place that someone smiled at her all week. Or the time someone said eating breakfast there on Saturday was like a  vacation from the struggles of life for him. And a volunteer that said his time helping at House of the Harvest brought him out of a deep depression after the loss of his wife. 

It’s hard to spend time looking backwards when we are always so focused on going forward, but time spent remembering is good. I would ask you to spend a little time remembering today and recalling how you have been blessed because there is One who controls it all and He deserves all the glory.

Thank you, Father for all that You have done in my life, for all the ways that You have been there for me, sent someone or something for me. Thank you for any time that You have used me for someone else. Thank You for loving me enough to keep moving on my behalf. And thank you for allowing me to remember.