Monday, July 03, 2006

Cool thing last week

I wanted to tell you a cool thing that happened to me last week.

The used car I bought in February came up for safety inspection recently. Since it is a 1998 model, I figured that the emissions might be a problem. The check engine light was on and it turned out to need work on the EGR valve (emissions related). I had that repair done. Drove the car around for a day and then went to have safety inspection. The car computer was showing another emissions related failure -- one that doesn't cause the "check engine" light to burn. Back to car repair shop. They told me the repair related to this other failure code in the car computer would run about $650. I had them just clear the computer codes again to see if maybe the failure was just a residual problem from the prior repair. They cleared the codes and I drove the car around town all day to see if the code would come back.

The next morning I was heading toward the car repair shop to have them read the computer (and probably, I figured, do the needed repair to a faulty sensor). But.. on the way, I was sitting at a certain intersection. One way was the direction to the car repair shop... the other was the direction to the shop that does safety inspections. I quickly thought about how I'd been praying that God would take care of this car problem so that I wouldn't need to spend over $600 on a repair. I had a decision to make. I could either take the low-faith path toward the car repair shop, or I could trust God with the problem and turn right toward the safety inspection shop. I decided to have faith. I turned right toward the inspection shop. The car passed!

I know this is a small thing and maybe not worthy of prayer or much rejoicing. However, the big thing for me in this was sitting at that intersection. When we pray, do we really believe God will do something, or do we (in the back of our minds) assume that we'll still have to take care of things ourselves?

God may not always answer things just as we'd like. This was, though, a good reminder to believe Him for our requests.

3 comments:

kris said...

that is such a cool thing ... and sadly, i think i would've turned the other way. good for you - and yay God! =)

Parke said...

I don't think we can say that every time we get an emotional tug it's God, but I do think we forget that He does speak in a quiet voice many times. I praise God the care passed. It seemed He was guiding and caring for you here. Thanks for sharing this with us.

Anonymous said...

This reminds me of the 'Crisis of Belief' lesson in Experiencing God. Even though it was probably one of the cheesiest presentations I've ever watched, I still learned a lot from it that I can still say I try to apply to my life.

But what we do when we sense God's tug to do something says exactly what we believe in God. As you asked, do we really believe God will come through, or do we think He'll leave us hanging? Do we really trust Him? And will we trust Him again if He doesn't answer the way we wanted Him to? Does it mean He's not God anymore, at least not Lord of our lives?

Thanks for sharing Allen...