May 6, 2026 Devo

Several years ago, I took a church plant that was struggling for survival and did a restart with it. We started getting traction and began to grow. We had some amazing leaders who had great hearts for God and great hearts for our community. What we DIDN’T have as a church was a lot of money. In fact, we lived on a shoestring budget with no surplus.
One day, I had what I believed to be a “God-idea.” It was an idea for outreach that I truly believed would have a significant impact in our area. The only problem was that it was going to cost $1500 ($3500 in today’s money). We didn’t have that kind of money anywhere, so I simply made it a matter of prayer and filed it away.
Shortly thereafter, the mother of a man in our church passed away. A few days after the funeral, he called me to ask if Wanda would like to look through his mother’s clothes to see if there was anything she might want since they were about the same size. He gave me the address where his father lived, and a few nights later, we met them there. Since this man was a board member in our church, I thought I’d tell him about my outreach idea. His father, whom I met for the first time that night, listened intently while I shared my idea. When I finished sharing, I told my board member to be praying with me about it, and maybe we could kick it around at our next board meeting and brainstorm some fundraising ideas.
When Wanda finished trying on clothes, she packed up what she wanted, and we thanked my friend and his father. We walked out to the car, where I began putting the clothes in the trunk. When I closed the trunk and turned around, there was my friend’s father. He said, “Pastor, if your church decides to do that outreach idea, I’ll pay for it.” My mouth hit the ground. This man had never been to our church. He’d never heard one note of our music or one word from my sermons. Yet God had touched his heart to provide for us what we needed to make it happen. God moves through the most unlikely people sometimes!
That’s the point God makes through Isaiah in our passage today. God used Cyrus, the Persian king, as an instrument to return His People back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city and the Temple. In fact, God refers to Cyrus as His “shepherd.” Let this both amaze you and motivate you today. God isn’t limited to whose heart He can touch or who He might use to accomplish His will. When I prayed for the provision for our outreach event, I never dreamed the money would come from a man I’d never met or who had never attended our church. Israel never dreamed that God would use a pagan king to facilitate their deliverance from exile. And you have no idea who God might use to answer YOUR prayers as well. All I can say is thank God for His Unlikely Blessings! That’s God’s Word for you today.