Here is a true story which just happened to me in the last two weeks.

Easy Come; Easy Go


                         By Phil Scovell




     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