My staff pulled me in for an emergency meeting. They showed me the list of families that are on our waiting list who were homeless. Get this! A staggering 210. Never, in my wildest dreams, did I imagine I would see this. Already, we have an entire floor full of homeless families. My staff said, “Can we please open up fifteen more rooms out of an old storage area?”

There was a problem…..WE HAD NO MONEY TO DO IT!

At first, I gave the standard reply, “We don’t have the money.” Then I realized, “When have we ever had the money?” I realized years ago that money follows ministry. You start the ministry by faith and then God sends the resources. I’ve also learned something else in ministry and that is:

VISION AND PROVISION RUN PARALLEL.

The moment you decide to help people is the moment God has a strategy in mind to help you. We decided to go for it!

We spent money we needed to pay bills on developing these fifteen rooms. Money we did not have for progress, only for survival. Sure enough, my God came through again.

The moment we started fixing up those rooms to help these precious families I got a call. One of the largest radio stations in Los Angeles wanted to do a three-hour telethon next week to raise $60,000 for our family expansion program. What a God!

All the provision you need for your vision is not in having the perfect plan on how to fund it. It’s in the next step that feels impossible to take. It’s always been about walking on water, five smooth stones against a giant, and parting the Red Sea. Fifteen new families are moving in next week and we now have the provision for the vision. Simply because courageous staff members realized that there’s no way God would let hurting people down. Vision and provision really do go hand in hand when you take the first step.