Don't Forget to Ask-

Early in the morning I often sit with a cup of coffee, my journal, and carry on conversations with God. On one such occasion, I was talking to God about all the oil and gas wells in Texas especially in the surrounding outlying areas. Our church is in the city and we have 6.3 acres of land. We are not using all of it for buildings.

'God,' I asked, 'with all this property here at the Vine, what do you think about putting up a gas drilling rig on our property?' He was silent, but I knew He was thinking about it!

The next day as I was opening mail, I had an offer from Paloma Resources to lease our mineral rights for $5,000 per acre plus a 25% royalty! At first I thought it was a sham, but then remembered my question to God. You see, this area is sitting on what is called the Barnett Shale Gas Deposits. They are drilling like crazy! The letter was for real!

We started getting other offers as the competition heated up... $6,000, $7,500, $8,000... There were numerous neighborhood groups formed to negotiate with the companies.

Well, the rest of the story is this- this past Saturday the church signed a contract for gas lease rights at $16,850 per acre with the 25% royalty!

Praise the Lord! Listen, don't ever pass up an opportunity to make your requests known to God. Then having done just that leave it in His capable hands! He knew before I asked and had already started the answer!

Another plus, all of this without putting an unsightly and noisy rig on our property!

As a side note, I live less than a mile from the church in a subdivision and Debi and I also signed a gas lease on our home property!

Ain't God good?... all the time!