The summer after my sophomore year of college, I had a couple of speaking engagements lined up that were a couple of hundred miles from home. However, I didn’t have a car or any way to get to those meetings. I knew that if God had provided the speaking engagements, He would provide a way to get there, and I prayed and asked Him to do that. My younger brother had an old Plymouth Horizon that had broken down and was sitting in the front yard of an auto mechanic’s house out in the woods. He told me he would sell me that car for $1.00. So, I gave him the dollar, and we went down to the bank and signed the car over to me. Then, me and my father went out to the mechanic’s house where my first new (well, new to me anyway) car sat. We opened the hood and there was a large spider web across the entire engine, and it looked like a pile of rust. The mechanic said, “That car’s going to need a lot of work.” Well, the first thing it needed was a new battery, as the current battery was not anywhere near working order. So, me and my dad drove down to a local auto parts store and bought a battery. We came back and put the battery in, and the car started right away. I drove that beat up old Horizon all summer, until coming home from my last speaking engagement before I was to return to college, the car died on me as I was traveling down I-75 in south Georgia. God graciously allowed it to died while I was coming down a hill, and there was an exit ramp right at the bottom of the hill with a gas station. I coasted down the hill off the express way and into the gas station. A guy in town gave me $100 for the car, and took me to the airport, where with that $100 and the money the last church I had spoken in gave me, I was able to buy a ticket home.
God knew I needed a car. He didn’t give me a BMW or Mercedes, but an old car that wasn’t even supposed to be running, because He wanted to teach me that I could trust Him completely. And when the summer was over and I didn’t need the car anymore, He allowed it to stop running. I imagine a couple of His angels said, “Phew! Glad we’re done pushing that car all over the southeast!!”
God knows exactly what we need and when we need it. It isn’t always what WE want or how WE want, but He promises to supply all of our needs. All He asks is that we trust Him completely and obey Him.
In Matthew 6:24-26 Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?” and in the same chapter verses 31-33 He adds, “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
That’s the key to everything in this life – SEEK FIRST HIS KINGDOM AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS!!! God knows what else we need, and He can supply it like NO ONE else can!!
Trust HIM!!!
Obey HIM!!!
SEEK HIM!!!!