Spare No Expense
During the November prayer meetings, a word was brought, which I believed was for myself and my family. It was based on the opening verses of Isaiah 54v1-3:
“Sing, O childless woman, you who have never given birth! Break into loud and joyful song, O Jerusalem, you who have never been in labor. For the desolate woman now has more children than the woman who lives with her husband,” says the Lord. “Enlarge your house; build an addition. Spread out your home, and spare no expense! For you will soon be bursting at the seams.Your descendants will occupy other nations and resettle the ruined cities” – (New Living Translation)
I firmly believed that the word was for us as a family. God was going to give us more children (spiritually speaking I hasten to add!) and there was need for us to expand. Maybin and I talked about adding an extra room over the garage, but one thing that was going to happen almost immediately was regarding our eating area.
We spent the next few weeks in and out of furniture shops, but none of the tables were big enough. Then Heather and Andrew told us about a table they had bought in IKEA. We went there at the earliest opportunity and I was delighted to see this huge table. I made sure we had enough chairs to sit around it and ’spared no expense’. (Actually God has since blessed us with all the money we spent on the table and chairs!)
We have been hosts for some time of one of the listed Open Homes.
We understand that these are only “listed” open homes and the elders have been encouraging the church to meet in one another’s homes for food and fellowship right across the church. Nevertheless we were a little disappointed that we had never had more than 10 people come to our Open Home. On the night of the Open Home, I insisted on extending the new table to its full length to sit 12-14 people despite the awkward feeling of potentially only having few people sitting around it. I was totally amazed to see the table “filled” with the body of Christ and we had a wonderful time in the presence of God! Sitting round the table together, it was undoubtedly the best “open home” we had had in our home. I was so excited about the Lord blessing as I obeyed his word in this practical way.
