Dear Partner,

Have you ever walked through a field of fully mature, ripened corn ready for harvest? It is a beautiful sight as you stroll through the tall stalks laden down with juicy ears of corn. It is a promise of sufficiency, an indication that there will be more than enough to meet the needs of the family who planted the field. That is true, but what if you backed up out of the field and found out that the entire harvest field is only ten foot square in size? It's a beautiful field that God has blessed abundantly. It is "wall-to-wall" corn. Yet there will not be enough because the size of the field is simply too small to meet the needs of the family.

This was the situation I found myself in during the early days of my being tutored by the Holy Spirit. I have always been a hard worker; no matter what job I was doing at the time. I was driving long-haul trucks in those days, which meant sixty to seventy hour workweeks. Yet, with all my hard work, we were just barely getting by financially. During those years one of our daughters was in college and the other two were in high school. As any parent of teenage daughters is aware, those are very expensive years.

Sue and I were working hard and also giving as much as we could into the Kingdom of God. I kept wondering about the blessings promised in the book of Malachi to those who faithfully give of their finances into the Kingdom. It sure didn't seem to me like God was pouring out such a blessing upon us that there was no more room to receive it. It seemed to me that we had lots of room to receive more blessings. (I have since learned that this sort of internal reasoning is what the bible calls … doubt! I hate to admit it, but I was actually wondering "why" God was not performing His word in my life. Yikes! God forbid! I don't ever let my mind go down those paths anymore. I have learned that God cannot lie, He always performs His word, and that He is never the problem. He is always our answer.)

Thank God for fellowship with the Holy Spirit and prayer. One day while I was in prayer the Lord spoke to me and said, "I have performed all of my word in Malachi to you I have abundantly blessed the only field you have in the earth. The field you are laboring in is wall-to-wall corn." He was speaking of my job as a truck driver. It was the only field, the only revenue stream I had going in the earth at the time. Sure enough, when I began looking at my job with this new perspective I found that He had blessed me to the point I had earned more than any of the other truck drivers working at that company in the previous year. The Lord had blessed me with good health not to miss any work, good weather conditions for driving, and had kept me accident free. In fact, the more I looked at the situation, what more could He do for me? He had maximized the amount of money that could be earned in that particular "corn field." If the Lord was going to be able to give me an increase in financial blessings, I was going to have to labor in a larger field.

Many people who are in the same condition write to me asking why the Lord is not blessing them. Very often, the problem is not that God has not blessed their job abundantly. Usually, if they have been good employees, they have already progressed in their pay scale until they are now earning the maximum they can receive in that job. Unless they change jobs, they can usually only expect minimum "cost of living" increases as long as they remain employed there. God has blessed their "corn field" to the maximum. It is not His fault if the "field" [job] they have chosen to labor in is too small to meet their needs.

If they want more of God's blessing, they are going to have to labor in a larger field. Changing occupations is a difficult proposition for most people. People tend to fear "change!" I was in my mid forties when the above-described event occurred. What was I to do? As I said, my family was depending upon me to bring in a steady income. I couldn't just stop working and go back to college to learn a new occupation.

Again, thank God for fellowship with the Holy Spirit and prayer. Jesus has not left us as orphans. He has sent the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, to guide us through a lost and dark world. As Sue and I would spend time in prayer, the idea kept coming that I ought to begin learning how to operate computers. Sue would gently and lovingly encourage me to begin doing so. (Thank God for a godly wife. Sue never nags me, but she has this wonderful ability to hear from God and then communicate to me what He is saying … and make me think it was "my" idea!)

To be perfectly honest, computers scared me. I had been out of school for decades and the thought of learning something "new" was intimidating. Reluctantly, we saved enough money to buy an inexpensive, used computer. Little by little, mostly in the evenings when I was home from truck driving, I learned how to operate it. I did not know at the time that learning how to operate a computer would be vital to the ministry the Lord would call me to just a short time later. Those skills today allow us to teach and preach the gospel in virtually every nation on earth via the Internet. Those same skills allow us to service more than five thousand families who receive the teaching tapes and keep track of who has received what, and when.

So, how does this apply to you? You might take another look at the "field" you are laboring in. Has the Lord blessed you in it? Is it already wall-to-wall corn? Are you near the top of the income potential from the occupation you are in? Perhaps it is time to consider laboring in a new field, a new occupation. If so, please season your decisions with much prayer and fellowship with the Counselor, the Holy Spirit. He will always lead you in the direction the Shepherd desires for your life.

Sue and I love you and appreciate you. We thank God for your generous and giving heart. God bless you!

Your friend and co-laborer,

Gary Carpenter

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