The church is half way between work and home and so one day I was on my way to work and my wife was in town running errands. I was supposed to meet her at the church and she would take responsibility for the children. I pulled into the parking lot and noticed someone had left the gate open for the 2 central air units. I thought, “Who would leave those gates open,” then I thought, “Well I guess someone wanted to borrow the A/C,” then I remembered that you can’t just borrow those units, they were stolen. That’s right; someone busted out the light, broke the lock, and stole 2 central air units.

Pastoring a church and working full time job is tough enough, but taking care of mindless acts sometimes feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back. It took about 5 minutes until I decided I would try something new; I would go with the flow, keep a good attitude and see what God had planned through this situation.

The worst part of being small is our resources are small too. This is tough when a year and a half ago we just put those units in for almost $5,000. We were insured and as a middle aged man I finally used property insurance. Not a bad experience. My rep was great. He walked me through everything and anything I needed he took care of.

As a matter of fact, we have had 2 different people send the church money to help cover the deductible. We had another lady call and offer us two window units, and another guy offer to help me install security cameras. This was a result of the local news station finding out about it and wanting to run a story. These are all good things. The selfishness of a few can be drowned out by the generosity of others.

Wanting to find the positive here I found one more light in the darkness. We didn’t miss any from our services. Sunday morning wasn’t too bad; a lot of fans and a little sweat. It was right about 80 on Sunday night so we sent down to the basement where it was cooler and talked about our vision. I left charged and ready to take on the world.

There are a lot of things to discourage you, but shake them off and look for God in the middle of it. Remember, He has given you the place you serve, be faithful and be proud of it.