It's a small matter

So the other day we were told that we have run out of pine cones for our Boy Scout Christmas wreath sale.  The scouts decorate the wreaths with pine cones and berries and a nice hand-made red bow. It's been a bad year for pine cones apparently. Who knew they go in cycles depending on the weather of the year prior.  I know that now. The bottom line was they needed pine cones to finish the decorating the wreaths.

It's a small matter.

I was going for a walk at lunch at work and there are some woods there.  I forgot to bring a bag to put any pine cones in and a quick prayer went through my head - "God, provide a bag".  It instantly reminded me of Abraham telling his son Isaac that God will provide the lamb (Genesis 22:8) but on a much smaller and less meaningful scale. That was it, my brain formed the prayer on it's own, I didn't even ask it to.  I didn't even expect to find any pine cones.  I thought nothing more of it.

Ten minutes later I'm walking down a nice tree lined path and there is a bag.  One of those reusable store shopping store bags was stuck in some brush on the side of the road.  It was a blue bag, I don't even remember the store it was from.  I laughed a bit but didn't pick it up (I doubted God I later realized!).  Further down the path there are a bunch of pine cones that had fallen to the ground.  Based on this years pickings elsewhere I would call it the motherload of pine cones.  I went back to get the bag.  In no time I had a bag filled with pine cones for the scouts.

After collecting the pine cones I noticed a few tics on me, this area is famous for having deer around it a lot so the tics are only natural.  These tics reminded me of my doubt.  I didn't grab the bag right away, I laughed it off at first.  Evil works it's way into our life like a tic.  It attaches itself to us and we become it's host.  It can make us ill.  The tic was the sin of my doubt, a lack of faith.

Again, it's a small matter and a small prayer but it was answered and that is the key to this.  Not all prayers are so obviously and immediately answered as this one and not all prayers are answered how we want them to be but this one had the desired outcome.  And to think I almost left the bag that I prayed to show up on the side of the path!

What did I learn?

• Sin comes in the form of doubt, a doubt that attaches itself to us and is difficult to get off.
• Prayers, no matter how small do matter.
• I need God.  God listens to me and I need that in my life.  
• I need to pay closer attention to these God moments since not all of them will be as obvious as a bag on the side of a path.
• I need to pay closer attention to the tics trying to attach themselves to me, trying to slowly become a part of my life.  I need to quickly remove those tics before they sink their teeth into me.
• I need to pray and pray often.  I might be praying about a small matter but it's relevant to God.
• I can't forget to thank God when prayers are answered no matter what the answer is!