October 17 – “Greasing the wheels …”

Chris took a huge step forward today toward completing the numerous projects she has started around the house.  The main one concerns the coffee table Nathan made for her.  She finally picked out the stain she wants, and worked most of the day on getting a first coat applied.  That necessitated a trip to WalMart to get a few more brushes and some polyurethane to seal the whole thing once she is finished with the staining.  It already looks really nice.  Can’t wait to see the finished product.

Speaking of WalMart, I found the primary piece of the costume I have planned for this year’s Halloween outreach party.  Can’t tell you yet what the final product will look like, but I will be the personification of Hurricane Harvey.  Oh, and here’s another hint … there is also a literary allusion involved.  Unveiling to come …

After grabbing the staining supplies, some dog food, and some groceries we needed, we headed over to Randall’s to pick up the produce and some stamps.  Much better quality produce than WalMart’s.  We also grabbed some bacon.  WalMart was pretty low on the brand Chris prefers.  As it turned out that was a good choice.  As we checked out we discovered that the bacon was worth “4X gas points.”  Not sure what that meant at the time, but we did need some gas, so we headed over to the Randall’s pump.  And to our surprise we were treated to 20 cents per gallon off the regular price.  We may have to shop at Randall’s more often. 

Not much else to tell about yesterday.  I worked on the sermon for a few hours.  I also went up to the bank to get some Visa gift cards for hurricane relief use.  We were given a lower fee rate because the cards were for hurricane relief ministry by the church. 

Speaking of gift cards, we got some WalMart gift cards while we were there.  Since I needed to get ten of them, I went to the customer service desk to take care of it.  Good thing.  There were not one, but two customer service managers standing around just waiting for me to walk up.  And no other customers in line, either.  How does that ever happen at WalMart?  Between the two of them, they figured out how to do what needed to be done, and the whole process didn’t take more than five or ten minutes.  Amazing what happens when ministry is involved. 

1 John 4:1-3 says, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”

Father, thank you for greasing the wheels over at the bank and at WalMart so we could get those gift cards.  Use them to draw some folks closer to you.  Amen.