We serve a God of provision and we see this through the Old and New Testament. These did not always come easily and required someone operating in a faith and relationship with God.  By Gary Shotton #000466

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Provision

By Gary Shotton

This text is in Extreme Rough draft and will be edited in the near future.

Hello my name is Gary Shotton, and I’m here as a part of Inspiring Better Business, and today I’m going to talk about the subject probation, and particular God’s provision in our life and how God wants to provide for us I’m, I’m confident of that he’s a God that loves us and cares for us and has good things in mind, he’s not a God of poverty and lack and, and, and stress and, but God wants us to learn how his provision works well in our part of the world. The word prosperity has kind of gotten a distorted meaning so I’m not using the word prosperity, like most people would because it kind of gives the idea that, that somehow I will get, so rich I can own three or four or five homes and I can own the best of cars and I’m not knocking, or criticizing somebody that does that, that’s up to them that they’re going to have to answer for that, but I do know that God is a God of provision, he will provide what we need at the right time, if we walk in faith towards that. Well, I wish my parents were good parents and I’m so happy to have been raised on a farm and ranch and, and in this part of my younger years, just as a small boy. My parents taught us to save money, and we just knew that if we got an A, We got a quarter or we got straight A’s we got a quarter, and if we could save by working with little allowance not really allowances we actually helped dad work we never got an allowance for making our bed. We had to work for dad. But that’s fine and, and when we accumulated some $50 which was quite a bit of money. We would go to the bank and mom and dad would match that so if we had $50 then we would go to the bank and we deposit our 50 plus a match from 50, from mom and dad, and this was just a pattern over many years I’m talking about 15 years 10 or 12 or 15 years and we accumulated in our savings accounts some unknown amount because we never looked at it we it’s not some of our business even though is in our personal name, and I was about 17 years old when I discovered that I had enough money in my savings account to buy two brand new cars. I mean, brand new, the best cars. I had 60 $700 in my savings account, and my mom’s and dad’s best car Lincoln Marquis. Our Mercury Marquis was around 30 $500 or $3,000. And so I politely asked my dad say I kind of got this old, no secondhand car over here I was thinking I would maybe get a little better car, and he says no, no discussion. Well I’m glad because not long after that, there was some land that came for sale and dad took my money, or guided us and putting our money together with my two brothers have made $20,000 And my parents match the other 20,000 and we add an auction that shotgun farms, Inc, Incorporated was formed and we had to start with 2000 acres, am I so glad that that didn’t let me buy a car that would be worn out and worthless. And so that was my upbringing and and my point of provision was that I see a pattern with what my dad did and you’ll see later in my own life, that I didn’t set out to get rich, or be prosperous. I set out he set out to do good business he set out to do good stewardship, he was a pillar at the local church and and and he, and he was a giver to the Gospel we had, we had provisions to give and he was just a good steward. And by the way, when we, he was not one to be flamboyant or or outgoing in the sense of bragging and when this. This was a public auction so there’s a little more to the story that there’s no one in the entire region, there was this is a big auction, and, and there was hundreds of people at the auction and dad was successful to buy this biggest parcel of land, well everybody knew that he bought that what they what they didn’t know it was going to happen, that at that time, we it was only $1 A bushel and within three or four months had doubled in price, the dollar a bushel became $2 A bushel and the land was sold with the wheat the surface rice being going with the buyer that’s with us, and we all we did in four months. One thing is all we did was paid the harvesters to harvest, that’s just half of the land was planted today that’s the way it works strip farming, and, and that half the land was totally paid for, just by buying it, and paying for the harvesters to cut the harvest, and the next year was almost equally as good, and the entire community. Without that bragging or being braggadocios at all knew that that land was totally paid for we in less than two years, and we’ve owned that land and parts of that land still today. So God’s provision is amazing. but the point of the lesson is that didn’t set out to do that, he was guided and directed by God to do good business to stick with it, not become weary, not to give up. He had to push through a difficult times. Well, that was a key part of my life. So I don’t say God’s plan that having this master plan, although there’s not nothing wrong in a secular way to set goals and try to be have provision, but my plan. In my encouragement is we just do good solid business.

Well in my life, I was an engineer for my first 10 years out of college and we had determined to move to attend Bible school. In my new town, but we hadn’t started out with that plan and some two years prior to us deciding to go to Bible school, I had decided that I had to have some side income some side business. And I started buying baby calves. I started with what I had, I had enough money to buy baby calves and feed them and grow them up. There’s a whole story in that. But unbeknownst to me, The timing was perfect because when it came time to go to Bible school, I had, 10 mama cows that were giving birth to baby calves and these baby mama cows were now worth $1,000 each, and I had $10,000 to move to go to Bible school. I call that provision, God’s provision, somehow, with miss the diligence and I’m not bragging I just say I was diligent I was involved in my, my local church I was the treasurer of the local churches a small church I taught Sunday school class I was been a giver, all these years to my tie then I was a giver Commission’s and these are just facts, and, and I was dedicated to being the best person I knew as a Christian man, I made mistakes, of course, but I corrected my mistakes. And so, there’s where God’s provision came in when it came time at this later date. Really unplanned for I’m saying My goodness. I sell these cattle this cattle, I have $10,000 that fits right into me having money to move to a new town and get set up and go to Bible school. It wasn’t enough to go through two years of Bible school, but it sure helped. I had other people that were at Bible school and they were just telling stories about at the last minute they had no money, they just got there barely with enough gasoline in their car and they had no plans for money, and God provided. Well, that’s probation, but I kind of think in retrospect, that that was an act of mercy and grace on God’s part to to and that’s not the norm. I don’t think you want to run on him. I don’t think you want to be consistently at the bottom of your income, with no, no cash reserve, I still trust God for everything I have, but I just set the stage, ability to do solid life with my wife, be committed to my wife, to my family be committed to my church be committed to making the gospel of Jesus Christ, a part of my life, and then doing good business. And when that happens, that provision is well planned for something I don’t even know what it’s for. I’ve heard ministers talk about that. And I do believe that that when they have vision, there’s somebody here, that’s also called to make the probation, and that person may not even know it at that point, I believe that’s true. Well, God has a plan for us. God wants to give you provision. He wants you to. There’s there’s the provision of the first miracle of Jesus and and the in the land of Canaan where, where there was a, a wedding feast and, and somehow. On the second day, there had run out of wine and, and Jesus didn’t make a big scene about it, he just calmly had people, the the servants, but water into these six big containers for water and they threw out the water and it was wine and, and the person in charge with a wedding was amazed at how good the wine was, and though, there’s no indication that anybody knew that, other than Jesus and his close disciples, I don’t know for sure but Jesus demonstrated God’s provision in his first miracle and he, by the way it was a financial probation. So we want to follow God’s plan for our lives. And it’s not to seek riches, it’s not to seek prosperity, but it’s to believe that God will provide what we need. If we walk consistent with his way, and His Word and His Well, thanks for being a part of Inspiring Better Business.