Hi, Phil,
Wow!  That is some story!!  Smile

Romans 11:33  O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of
God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

In His Love,
Helen





>      After setting up a website relative to the ministry to which
>the Lord had called me, and experiencing some results, it seemed
>prudent to expand.  I briefly prayed about advertising
>commercially on a local Christian radio station.  It seemed to me
>that it was a logical way to progress and the best way to appeal
>to a wide audience.  After checking on the advertising rates, I
>called friends and family and asked them to pray that the Lord
>would provide the money.  I needed 3,000 dollars.
>
>      One day, some friends called, let's call them Sam and Gloria,
>and said they were coming over.  When they got here, I was handed
>a check for 3,000 dollars which was the exact amount I needed.
>Praise God!  What a blessing this was and what a wonderful answer
>to prayer.  Especially since my wife and I were so financially
>broke at the time, too.  I called friends and family and told them
>the good news and they rejoiced with me.  After all, this had to
>be of the Lord.  Right?  Immediately, the next day, things began
>to happen to make me reconsider.
>
>      The money was given to me on a Friday.  Over the weekend, a
>number of things occurred to bring discouragement to my life.  I
>found them all quite puzzling and spiritually mysterious but bless
>God, He had answered prayer and things were about to change;
>weren't they?  Yet, I felt something was wrong.  As the week
>progressed, things actually grew worse in several different ways.
>I do not want to belabor all the things which occurred which
>attempted to confuse me because that part of this testimony is
>not important.  Besides, most people probably wouldn't believe it
>even if I did explain it in detail.  It is what happened to the
>money itself that is nothing short of amazing.
>
>      When Sam and his Wife, Gloria, came and gave me a check for
>the money, Gloria said she had a vision during her time in prayer
>two weeks earlier.  She saw packets of sealed seeds with paper
>money attached to each packet raining down from the sky.  The
>packets had no writing on them.  She knew what these items were,
>of course, because the Holy Spirit explained it during the vision.
>Since the packets of seed had no writing, she asked the Lord who
>it all was for.  The Lord said, "Phil."  She was then instructed
>to give the money to me.
>
>      Gloria set this, as it were, on the back burner and waited
>for further confirmation.  She decided, after a period of time, to
>ask her husband's opinion.  He already felt they should give the
>money to me.  Since they were in agreement, therefore, they did
>what the Lord had led them to do.
>
>      The first time I recognized something was wrong, was the
>moment they handed me the check.  I even stood with the check in
>my hand, thanking them for what they had done, but in my spirit,
>I felt something wasn't right.  Each day following the day I
>received the financial gift, different events occurred one by one
>which caused me to focus on the money.
>
>      As I walked through the kitchen the following Thursday, just
>six days after receiving the gift, I stopped dead in my tracks,
>turned, and placing both my hands on the counter top, I prayed.
>"Lord?  I need to know what is wrong and I need to know right
>now."  Suddenly, I knew.
>
>      The Lord said, "It's the money."
>
>      I said, "What about the money?"  He made it very clear He
>wanted me to return it.  No, He didn't explain why at first but I
>soon learned.
>
>      As I continued questioning the Lord about the whole
>situation, I asked Him how to best go about returning the money
>without offending the people that had given it to me.  The Lord
>showed me several things.  First, He reminded me of at least three
>things which were checks in my spirit, or notifications, if you
>will, of something that was wrong or that He wanted me to
>consider.  After identifying those three things that caused me to
>reconsider keeping the gift, the Lord revealed what was really
>happening.
>
>      The Lord said that I was attempting to market, as it were, my
>own ministry.  You see, I am no longer in business but in ministry
>and it isn't even mine; its His.  Since 1973, I have been self
>employed.  I have done radio commercials to market my business,
>printed fliers, mass mailed, set up websites, and used other
>marketing tools to advertise.  Now the Lord was telling me that I
>was trying to get the word out about what He had called me to do
>as if I were still in business.  He wanted me to return the money
>and let Him promote what He alone had started.  In this way, the
>Holy Spirit explained, I would not have to work at marketing the
>ministry, worry about people finding me, or even be concerned
>about the money needed for support.  His message was simple: I
>was attempting to advertise the ministry on my terms instead of
>His.  Understanding what He was telling me, I made contact with
>Sam and his wife and made arrangements to return the money.  Now,
>here is the amazing part.
>
>      When I explained to them why I was returning their money and
>explained all the details which when along with it, Gloria said,
>"This is amazing.  Last night the Lord spoke to me when I was
>praying and said, "The Money is coming back."  She questioned how
>this could be but the Lord just confirmed what He had said.  She
>wrote down what the Lord said in a computer file and saved it,
>because He said some other things related to the whole picture and
>she wanted to make note of it.
>
>      Thursday afternoon, when I had decided to return the money,
>due to all the Lord had shown me, I felt the Lord telling me other
>things concerning the actual money itself.  I asked the Lord,
>"What about the vision?  You even told them the money was for me
>and used my name in the vision."  The Holy Spirit then revealed to
>me that this was true; He, in fact, had told them to give me the
>money and confirmed it with a vision.  So, I said, "Then why did
>you tell them to give me the money if I am supposed to give it
>back?"
>
>      The Lord said, "It was a test for them and for you.  They
>obeyed by giving you the money as I told them so they passed the
>test.  Now it is your turn to see if you will obey."
>
>It was at that moment in time I knew I was going to do exactly
>what He had said.  No, it wasn't hard to tell them I was giving
>their money back.  Instead, I felt a sense a feeling of honor that
>the God of the universe would go to such elaborate means to test
>me.  First, he gave me the money.  Secondly, He allowed all sorts
>of things to happen which were things designed to distract me from
>hearing His voice.  Third, I stopped, in the midst of all the
>clutter going on around me, and prayed and heard His voice.
>Finally, I obeyed.
>
>      Once the decision was made, and the donors were told, I felt
>something else in my spirit that was amazingly unusual to me.  I
>felt that the Lord had just given me money to plant as seeds into
>the ministry He had called me to serve Him in.  Gloria then told
>me that the Lord told her that they had obeyed and given the
>money.  I had obeyed and the money was returned.  Now the seeds
>were planted.  Somehow, the Lord wanted me to plant financial seed
>while at the same time I had no money to do so.  He gave me money,
>which belonged to someone else, to use as seed money to plant for
>a future harvest.  By returning the money, He became responsible
>to make those seeds grow and I had to do nothing but obey.
>Additionally, the donors were blessed in a similar manner.
>
>      This is not the end of this story for two reasons.  First,
>when the Lord expands the ministry I am in now, I will have to add
>to this story to report on God's greatness.  Secondly, on Thursday
>afternoon, when I prayed in my kitchen and heard the Lord telling
>me what to do about returning the money, I had forgotten that our
>tax preparer was coming over that evening for us to sign the
>papers concerning our income tax return.  three hours after the
>Lord revealed His truth to me about the money, we were seated at
>our dining room table listening to the CPA explain all he had
>done.  When he said, "between your state and federal taxes,
>therefore, you are getting back 5,000 dollars," I nearly fell off
>my chair.  If Sam and Gloria had not given me the 3,000 the week
>before, and if I had not heard the voice of the Lord about
>returning it, I would have taken my own money, spent it, and never
>once realized why my investment in radio commercials proved
>fruitless.
>
>      Finally, Gloria told me the next day something else the Lord
>told her concerning the money.  She just was asking the Lord in
>the thoughts of her prayer time, why I gave the money back when
>He, the Lord, had not only given her a vision but also even said
>they were to give the money to me.  The Lord told her that the
>money was seed.  She and her husband, therefore, had planted the
>seed but gotten the money back.  He then asked her where the money
>was now and she said, "being returned."  He then told her, the
>seed is now planted.
>
>      I don't know if you really followed all of this but if not,
>go back and read it all again.  The bottom line is this.  God
>wanted to test me as well as Sam and Gloria.  God knew I needed
>money that I did not have.  He knew, if I got my income tax back,
>I would think, with that much money, I could spend 3,000 dollars
>on radio commercials.  He did not want me to do that so He devised
>an intricate test to see if I could hear him through an onslaught
>of clutter.  A vision was given in order to confirm Sam and Gloria
>would do the will of the Lord.  They gave.  Then I was tested to
>see if I would obey by giving it back.  I did.  When I did, the
>Lord confirmed the return of the money before I returned it.  He
>also told me, and Gloria, that the money was seed and the seed was
>now planted.  So, as I sat in my living room considering all this,
>I suddenly realized, I am going to reap a harvest which was the
>outcome of using somebody else's money for a brief period of time.
>Why the exchange you ask?  As I have said, first, it was a test
>but there is more to it than that.  There was a harvest the Lord
>wanted some people to experience.  He made a way so both parties
>could receive confirmation of the will of the Lord and then
>promised a blessing as a result.  As they say, "Easy Come; easy
>go," but with God, "All things are possible."
>
>I Flew Kites With Jesus
>www.SafePlaceFellowship.com