“Drop Your $20 Bills in the Basket”
November 13, 2021
My yearly salary, as a first year teacher, was something in the neighborhood of $5,100. During that not so lucrative year, I attended a teacher’s convention with my colleagues during which a group of students put on a play for our enjoyment. I do not recall what the play was about, but I do recall a collection was taken during intermission for student scholarships. I was seated in the back of the auditorium which afforded time to ponder if I wanted to drop $20, the only bill I had in my wallet, in the plate when it finally arrived to my row. That $20 needed to carry me through for the next 10 days until I got paid again. I was willing to give a dollar or two, but twenty dollars?
The collection basket eventually made its way to my seat, and I said to God, “If you want me to give this $20, then you will have to pry my fingers off it!” Well, pry He did, and I left the conference with an empty wallet, a piggy bank at home with some spare change that may help me survive, and with a sense I did what God wanted me to do. But, how would I make it until the next pay day?
On my first day back to school after the convention, I came home and found a check in my mailbox in the amount of $2,000. Some forgotten stock I had bought a few years earlier, upon the advice of my Dad, was sold and that was my profit. God had provided 100 times the amount of the twenty dollars I reluctantly gave at the conference!
When I recall this story, I also recall how the name of God, Jehovah Jireh became very real to me. Jehovah Jireh means the Lord Our Provider, and we first encounter this name in Genesis 22. It is found in the passage about God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his only son, whom he loved, and the heir God promised to Abraham.
Genesis 22:1-2
1 Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 2 He said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”
God tested Abraham with an unimaginable task—offering his long awaited, beloved son as a burnt offering unto God! Amazingly, Abraham passed the test with flying colors as he immediately obeyed God’s command.
Genesis 22:3-4
3 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 4 On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.
Abraham rose, saddled, took, cut, arose, and went. He trusted and obeyed unfalteringly.
I can only imagine what the conversation must have been like between Abraham and Isaac as they walked up the mount and as Abraham laid the wood on Isaac, and then took the fire and knife in his hand. When Isaac questioned where the lamb was for the burnt offering, Abraham replied that God would provide the lamb.
Genesis 22:6-8
6Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. 7 Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 8 Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.
And then we see that Abraham was stopped from laying his hand on Isaac.
Genesis 22:10-12
10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”
God, Jehovah Jireh, did indeed provide the lamb.
“13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called the name of that place, “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”-Genesis 22: 13-14
My $20 donation, all those years ago, pales in comparison to what God asked Abraham to do. And it pales in comparison to what God asked of His only begotten Son. God provided His only begotten Son as the lamb of sacrifice for our sins. The greatest provision of God’s grace was to deliver all believing sinners from sin and death.
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.–John 3:16
Drop your $20 bills in the basket, and trust and obey even when what God is asking doesn’t make sense. Jehovah Jireh is our Preserver and Provider. He will make provision for what we need.