"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your heart and minds in Christ Jesus". Philippians 4:4-7
REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS... Even when:
-your clunker breaks down
-then your "nice car" breaks down as you are borrowing a truck from your pastor and then you and your husband both have to share that BORROWED car
-you have to buy a new car but don't REALLY have the money...at least for that
-your husband and you car pool to work but your office hours are COMPLETELY different
It's REALLY hard to "rejoice always" and "Let your gentleness be evident to all" and much less to "not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God"...
So, the reason for this post is that my newly purchased "used" car just broke down on me this morning. My first thought was "Oh no! Not again! You are suppose to be the RELIABLE one!" and then I pretty much freaked out. Well, after that was done, I prayed and gave it over to the Lord.
But, if we are all honest with ourselves, how hard is it to rejoice in the Lord when things like that are going on and they just keep coming. "When it rains, it pours". But, if we stop and think about how faithful the Lord has been it helps put things in perspective.
For example:
-Grant's clunker truck blows up and is no longer drive-able...thank GOD we have a pastor with an extra car that didn't mind loaning it to us
-When my Suburu, our "faithful" car, broke down-thank GOD that we had our pastor's truck! We would have been stuck with nothing! And, in the middle of that situation we had amazing Morella and Nixon family who gave us "loaners" to help us get by.
-When we were car shopping for a new car (this might be a long bullet point) we found this GREAT (or so we thought) Dodge Durango 1999. We were sold on it but that night I prayed "Lord, if this isn't the car for us, please make it BLATANTLY CLEAR if we shouldn't be buying this". And, the next morning, my parents made us an offer to purchase my Grandfather's car. It was 20,000 miles less, a 2005 and we wouldn't have to go through the bank for a loan. We believed that was PRETTY clear!
-And, as far as my new 2005 car that we purchased from my parents-everything is turning out great! It turned out to just be a loose bolt that we could get fixed today and all is good. I am sure more will come from this and when it does I will still sing praises to our God! Even if nothing good comes from this 2005 car purchase then we will still remain faithful and praise God!
I have always told Grant that one day I am going to write a book and the title will be something to the effect (affect? don't know which one...teachers, help!) of "The Lord is ALWAYS Faithful"...it will have to be something more catchy than that, but you get my idea. Or we could call it "Crappy stuff happens, but God is still in control". I don't know if that title would sell well :)
