Popcorn

We were just going out to visit friends who had recently returned from an overseas mission field. Earlier that day, we had shopped at the discount club and purchased a large 50-pound bag of popping corn. On the way out the door, the thought hit me to bring along a bag of the popcorn kernels as a welcome home gift to this family.

The Danley’s were a large family. With their six kids, we knew they would need a few pans of popcorn so we packed a decent sized plastic bag with the un-popped kernels to take as our gift.

When we arrived and offered this bag of popcorn, we thought we were simply sharing out of the abundance in our kitchen. Little did we expect the reaction to our gift. Kids started jumping up and down with joy! The parents were laughing!

You see, the Danley children, used to the meager stuff of a foreign mission field, had prayed just the night before – and asked God to provide some popcorn for them! I wish I could say that I felt some sort of spiritual impulse to take along the popcorn. But I didn’t – it was just a thought that hit my mind. But when I learned that this was an answer to prayer, my first thought was, “God, how wonderful You are. You knew what they wanted and what we had to give, so You just used us to provide it!” We had been blessed as much as those children were.

Hearing God speaking is many times just following simple thoughts and impulses to do good things – to be generous, to help out, to serve in some way that might be a little different than my normal routine.

Lord, let my thoughts be in tune with Yours. Let my feelings and impulses bring honor to Your Name. May the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be pleasing to You, my Lord.

- This blog was written by Jerry Warsaw for the Radical Series. Jerry is a pastor at Elim Gospel Church.