Two Saturdays ago I was sweating up a fake hill on my elliptical in the basement and praying for a miracle.

Travis’s work was offering a new family insurance plan that was wildly out of our price range and we needed to make a decision in 48 hours for how we were going to pay for it. In the middle of my prayer my mind started to drift to all the people I know who have more money than I do and I started to grow envious of their peace in this area (because more money equals more peace right?).

God, you know we don’t have $950 a month.

But God wasn’t worried about the $950, he wanted to address the error in my heart. So he did.

Rachel, security is not financial. It’s spiritual.

Again, in the hard-to-explain-way God speaks, this phrase thundered in my mind.

How many millions of people have financial security but are living in fear of death? Would I trade places with them? Of course not.

And sure enough, Tuesday came and the bill turned from a mountain into a pebble. It was always a pebble to God.

I’m reminded of a story from back in my early days waiting tables. Our restaurant policy was to give the bartender 15% of our tips for pouring and mixing the drinks for our tables. We often griped about it because it wasn’t necessarily proportional to their work, but our pay. One night I was clocking out up at the bar with a few other servers and we were passing cash around for our pay out and the bartender’s tip out.

I started walking to my car and as I looked in my waiter wallet, I realized I hadn’t actually given the bartender her tipout – it wasn’t intentional and she would’ve never known. I wish I could say I did an about face and ran back to the bar – but I took an extra step towards my car, really wanting to pocket that $25 I felt I had earned.

God stopped me again.

My blessing is of far greater value than all the riches in the world.

And I knew God wouldn’t bless stealing from that bartender. The Holy Spirit helped me turn around and give her the money she was owed.

This was the same God who two years later, on the eve of my 25th birthday, would bring a group of 20 men into the bar I worked at who pulled out their wallets to pay off my final student loan. I like to think he couldn’t wait to show me the finale of my debt free journey.

God’s blessing on our lives is of infinite, immeasurable value. It provides for far more than our financial needs – it opens doors that the world says are closed, it meets us in our deepest sufferings and whispers that there will be joy again. His blessing takes the pen of our lives and writes the most beautiful stories.

It was worth the widow’s mite (Luke 21). And the sale of that field (Matt 13). And certainly the rich man would have never regretted giving it all away to follow Jesus (Matt 19).

As I write this we have another financial hurdle on our track, but I already know we have the only blessing we will ever need.