Being Wrong and Loving It

I can be wrong, but God never is.

“Of course!” you say.  For those of us in ministry leadership, this is often a hard lesson to learn. Some of the greatest blessings God has given me in my ministry came against my will.

When we were in our first building project, we were closing in on the last details but needed to raise money to purchase chairs. I had been praying earnestly for God to provide when one of the women in the church approached me.

“We own 15,000 shares of stock that we have set aside for the new building,” she said.  My heart jumped. God was answering prayer. Then the other shoe dropped. “We want it to be used to purchase a new piano for the auditorium.”

I was just a bit frustrated. What good does a new piano do us if the people have nothing to sit on? Besides, we already had a piano. It looked and sounded like it just came out of an old west saloon, but we had one!

I put on a smile and asked, “So what is the value of the stock?” She explained that it was presently valued at 15 cents a share, in Canadian dollars. It was a gold mining penny stock and the whole lot was worth a little less than $2000. That was not enough to buy a nice piano but could purchase quite a few chairs. I decided not to try to change her mind about the designation.  After all, they were still holding the stock themselves.

Several weeks later she again approached me. “The stock is over 30 cents a share now!” I immediately asked if they were going to sell it. “No,” she said, “We are praying for a Yamaha grand piano.” I bit my tongue. I had enough experience to know that penny stocks like that can fall just as fast as they rise.

A few more weeks passed and we had the same conversation again. This time it was over 50 cents a share. Still, she was not ready to sell. By the time she approached me the third time, the stock was nearing one dollar per share. “So now are you going to sell it?” “No,” she replied. “We have decided that the new auditorium needs a piano AND an organ,” I asked her how high the stock needed to go before she would sell. “Three dollars per share” was the response.

More conversations followed—at $1.50, then $2. I quit asking about selling.

Several weeks before we moved into the new building she called me at home. It was a Thursday morning. “Pastor, can the church open a brokerage account? The stock just passed $3 per share this morning and we need to transfer it to the church.” I asked the name and number of her broker and called him immediately. Within 30 minutes the church had a brokerage account, the stock transferred and sold. In those 30 minutes, the value rose from $3 to $3.80 per share.

By the time we moved into our new building we had a brand new Yamaha grand piano and an Allen organ. That original gift of under $2000 grew to just over $50,000 in just a few months. After we purchased the instruments the leftover cash was more than twice the value of the stock at its original price (when I wanted to sell it). She said I could use the overage to buy chairs!

Just before the first service in the new building, we stood together looking at the beautiful instruments God had provided. “I hope the church appreciates these as much as I do,” she said. “There is no possible way” was my reply. There was no one who enjoyed lunch the day that Jesus fed the 5000 as much as the boy who gave Jesus his five loaves and two fishes.

That event has become a defining lesson for our ministry. We plan, we move ahead, but we always expect God to alter those plans in some way for His glory and our blessing. God’s priorities are often different than mine. I tend to be pragmatic, utilitarian, bare-bones. He is more extravagant. He provides beyond our expectations. Our worship mattered to Him and He gave us instruments that helped our entire congregation worship Him more beautifully. I have learned to enjoy being wrong, as long as God is getting His way in the process.  He is always right.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:8-9