My name is Will, and our family has been attending Southland for about 8 months now. Admittedly so, I am NOT the model Christian, but during the past several months, things in my life have really changed…spiritually, at least.

I’d like to share a recent incident where I came to realize that the Holy Spirit is really at work in my life. For those who don’t know me, I recently purchased a hotel and although I’ve been running hotels for many years, this is the first time where I am running a loss on a property. In fact during the last 5 months of ownership, I have had only 1 month where I have turned a profit (and that was a small one).

Not to mention, I have been burdened with our family’s recent financial commitment to the Building Fund. Thoughts of, “How am I going to contribute what I promised, if I don’t even have the personal funds to do it?”

Additionally, my wife recently quit her job, of which we depended so much on to help with our finances. So my uncomfortable struggles over the past few months, compounded with our families obligation to the Building Fund has given me a very heavy heart, not to mention unnecessary anxiety.

Perhaps due to my childhood, I have always depended on myself to fix or control things without asking for help from outsiders. In fact, in this particular situation, I was only getting a couple of hours of sleep every night…as my mind races, trying to find solutions to my financial dilemma.

Recently completing the Experiencing God Discipleship, one night when I couldn’t sleep, I decided to sit down and just start reading from the first lesson again. During that time, I finally admitted in prayer, that I couldn’t do this by myself, and asked for guidance from the Holy Spirit. Not that this was a test to my faith or to God, but I wanted to see if He would be able to provide in some extraordinary way.

Amazingly, God provided for me. That same night, something told me to contact a local contractor who was working a large project down the street. I really didn’t give it much consideration, since I had been trying to set up a lodging account for months with the same contractor. Apprehensively, in the morning, not really knowing if that thought was God or not, I drove down to the site before work.

When I got there, all the supervisors were in a meeting, except for one truck with 2 guys waiting. Hesitantly, I asked them if they could hand the hotel’s brochures to the supervisor in charge. The guy looked at me and said, “I guess today’s your lucky day…our crews are scheduled to come in next week and we need lodging arrangements.”

It ended up that particular morning was the only day this foreman was in town to look for lodging arrangement. I was absolutely awestruck. If I had gone in one day before or one day after, I never would have made the connection. It was just on that one day, in fact, just that one morning that God opened an opportunity for me. As it turned out, his crew has contracted with our hotel to use 30 rooms for the next 3 months.

Who else can bring such a blessing, at a moment where I was so desperate and stressed out? I am always humbled to know that God will always provide for his children. And I am pleased that God is always watching me.

You know, I’m not saying that things are so “cut and dry”. In fact, most of us don’t even realize a blessing has occurred, until it has already passed. But what I’ve learned from this one blessing is that if you put some faith and trust in Him, He will provide. Maybe not so direct, as was this particular case…regardless, He will provide.

In hindsight, that day was “not a lucky day”, rather as my cell group said, “It was a blessed day.” And that’s the way I am looking at Christianity more and more. God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit…it doesn’t matter who is working in my life….the point is that they ARE working…in my life.