God Pays for What He Orders

For many years as we have travelled and spoken in churches, we have told people that, "God pays for what He orders," when people ask us how we afford ten children. It has been one of the biggest blessings of my life to see God pay for all the children that He has ordered for us. One example happened just this week...

One of the ways that I try to manage money carefully is by buying in bulk when I find food items on sale. Obviously, what our family considers bulk is different from most families because for us, a weekly trip to the grocery store would still be a huge amount of food to purchase. A family of our size consumes a large amount of food--especially when you consider that six of our ten children are growing young men!

Because we emptied our freezers before we left for Europe, we came back having to buy food at the going price rather than having a stockpile of food we had gotten at good sales. We buy so many groceries that this quickly makes a big difference in the food budget.

Earlier this week, we travelled to Rick's mother to visit her and while we were there, I picked up a sale flyer from her local grocery store to look for any good deals. I noticed that they had chicken breasts there for .99 a pound, and I intended to go by and get some to freeze, but we left without doing so. The next day, on a whim, I decided to shop at a totally different Walmart than usual. One of the things I like about Walmart is their price matching guarantee, so to save time, I just take the local grocery store papers in there and match the prices. I knew it was a stretch, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to see if this Walmart would match the sale prices from a competitor in Rick's mother's town even though the other store was not anywhere nearby.

I got to the meat counter and showed the lady there the ad and asked if they would match it. She said that she didn't think so because it was not really a competitor being so far away, but that she would ask the manager. To make a long story short, after a while she came back out and said that they would match the price on those chicken breasts, plus they would give me what I considered a much better grade of chicken for the same money. I took all they had and she got me more from the back of the store!

Before I left the meat department, I decided to just check on the ground beef prices and nothing seemed to be unusual. Usually I buy ground beef at a big discount and then I don't have to buy it again for a long time, but I always wait until it's a super deal. Just as I was walking away, I noticed a little sign that had fallen down into the bin of ground beef. It was a special sale sign, and I quickly started filling my cart and then called my mother and got more for her.

I knew the real test would come when I got to the cashier as she might balk when she saw the awesome deals I got on such a huge amount of food. At this point, it looked like I was running a restaurant by the amount of meat in my cart! When I got to the cashier, I showed her the sale paper and told her the manager had approved selling these chicken breasts for .99 versus the normal price which was a whole lot higher. She called the front manager and they started overriding the price on all these packages of chicken. After a few packages had gone through, the manager stopped and looked at me and said, "what was the original price on this chicken?" I replied that I wasn't sure, so she told the cashier to scan one and see. I figured that this was where the great deal was going to end, but I was hoping that this was how God was going to pay for His children! The cashier scanned the price and the manager saw that I was getting each package of chicken for about $3.50 less than the normal price. She said, "Hey, you really got a great deal on that chicken!" She helped me bag up all the chicken plus the huge amount of ground beef and I went happily on my way!

I was so encouraged to see how God always pays for his orders and it is so fun to see how He is going to do it! One more thing...I don't know if God is paying for the cashier's children, too, but I noticed she kept my sale paper. I am just guessing that on break time, both she and the manager were back there in the meat department loading up on chicken!

Now since this blog is supposed to be about time management, you can find out a great timesaving way to prepare ground beef ahead of time. No, it's not frying it all ahead of time. It's a much healthier and quicker way to prepare large quantities of meat for meals in the future. If you are interested, check out this tip on our website http://www.lifechangingseminars.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3192&Itemid=315