THE COIN IN THE FISH’S MOUTH

However, so that we do not offend them,

go to the sea and throw in a hook, and take the first fish that comes up;

 and when you open its mouth,you will find a stater (coin).

Take that and give it to them for Me and you. 

Matthew 17:27

​It was Christmas time, and - as always - the expenses were running higher than usual. Two holiday cards that my wife and I had bought at Menards lay on the lampstand in the living room. During a family visit, they got knocked off onto the floor. As I picked them up, I started to tuck the cards back into the envelopes when I noticed something. One of the envelopes already had something in it: four crisp one-hundred-dollar bills! No one in the room had put them there. All we could guess was that someone had gone into Menards and loaded the bills into the envelope as a holiday surprise for whoever bought the card.

​Like the coin in the fish’s mouth, the money showed up in a strange way, just at the right time, to pay for worldly expenses.

​Not that the Lord will do this ever again, or for anyone else. The point is just that Jesus never forsakes the righteous (Psalm 37:25). Like the dad who slips his son a little money for college before the trip back to school, our Father faithfully contributes to our needs in a thousand ways, some of which we never know. There is never a need to go beyond the path of righteousness in order to pay the temple tax. All that we need will be supplied to us by God’s hand somehow, though we may not see it coming. There is nothing fishy about trusting the Lord.​

Davy L. Troxel