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It was 1983 and
I had recently moved in with my adoptive family and was looking for
work. So I did the usually thing and went through the papers, and through
the CES (the Commonwealth Employment Service), but could not get an interview as
I had no employment history or good school grades. I had prayed and
prayed, but no job came. Then I felt God was saying to stop, and
wait on Him, and that if I prayed and trusted in him, he would provide.
So I stopped looking, prayed and waited. Then one day while I was
sitting at a friend’s house listening to the radio, an advert came on about a
position at a local timber yard, I had always liked working with timber, so she
wrote down the number and suggested that I ring them. So I did, and they
gave me an interview the next week. I turned up to the interview,
which was very short, and was promptly informed that I was the only
person who had rung, that had turned up for an interview, so the job was mine,
on a golden platter no less. God does
care about what we do and where we work, but we must trust completely in Him.
A number of years ago I bought a motorbike, my pride and joy, and I wanted to take it to Melbourne with us for the Christmas holidays. We often went to Melbourne for the Christmas hols as all our families are there. So not wanting to leave my bike at our house unattended for four weeks, I went to a friend and asked to borrow his trailer, which he lent me.
It was about a week before we were to leave and I took the bike to a Bike repair shop to have the brakes looked at, I took it down on the trailer to test out if I had tied it correctly to the trailer and how well it would travel. Well, going down Kings road, with all its pot holes, the bike bounced up and down and across all over the place. I decided that I was not going to take it to Melbourne after all.
So the next day I took the trailer back to my friends place. While I was there I asked him to look at the engine and see if he could work out what the squealing noise that had appeared about a week earlier was. As he was looking under the bonnet, he said,” Hey, I don’t know what the noise is, but do you know your leaking petrol everywhere?” And so I was, it was pouring out from the Fuel Pump, a week before we were due to leave for Melbourne. I asked if he could fix it, but he said it needed replacing, they were not repairable.
I said thanks and went home and rang our mechanic, who said it would cost around $130. I told him we had no money as my In-laws had already sent us money to get to Melbourne. He said that was OK and we could pay him after the Christmas break. I took the car to him and when I got there he told me it would cost exactly $123 and that I could pay when we got back from our holidays, and that it was fortunate that we had discovered the problem in time as the engine would have most likely caught on fire while on the way to Melbourne, I said OK and left for home.
About half an hour after arriving home the phone rang, it was the mechanic. He had rung to tell us that a Christian customer had just dropped in and given him exactly $123 for him to use for a deserving Christian customer who could not afford to pay for some repairs. We were all amazed at what God had done. And your wondering about the noise in the engine that started this all, we never heard it again; the mechanic had no idea what it could have been.
Let me share with you a recent event in our lives that I believe was planned by God for a purpose that had nothing whatsoever to do with ministry, by that I do not mean that this is the only reason for what happened, but I do believe it was one of the reasons.
I was invited to be a youth worker at a particular church, and I believe that God very carefully planned the timing. After being at this church for a couple of months, we decided, that is my family and I, that with all the things that we were involved in, we needed a second car. So we refinanced our personal loan and purchased a second car for me. After about a month, our hot water service blew up and water gushed out in torrents, so we rang around and discovered that it was going to cost us just over $1,000 to replace. Hot water was not something that we could do without. The problem was that with the recent loan refinance we could not borrow more money, and what I was earning was no where near enough to come up with over $1000, and we were still repaying a loan from my in-laws. We had nowhere to get the money from, so the only solution was to sell the second car.
That night was our Bible study I ran at our place, and so we told the others in the group what had happened and what our dilemma was. One of them said, not surprising really..er..to everyone else that is, “Why don’t you pray about it?”. My reply was, “Yer, I know that, but God is not going to put a thousand dollars in our letterbox, is he.” The reply was, “Why not.” So I agreed and that night I prayed to God and handed it over to him. The next morning we received a phone call from someone in the church and God gave us $1000, and it came via the post the next day. Not long after this event I was no longer the youth worker there. I believe that, at least in part, God wanted us at that church at that time so as too enable us to pay for our hot water service that we would otherwise not have been able to pay for.
I learnt a valuable lesson that week, that when we hand things over to God, he can and does answer prayer. I don’t mean that he will always give us money, but he will look after us, as Jesus said in Mathew chapter 6, don’t worry about food and clothes etc, God will look after you, he knows that we need these things. The key is to trust completely in him, hand it all over to him. It took me many years to realise this, I’m a stubborn learner, but my father in heaven, your father in heaven, is a patient teacher, trust in him. Also, know that as Steven Curtis Chapman sings, “Sometimes God comes in the clouds”
A Note From Heaven
Dear Beloved One,
I see your loneliness and tears, your guilt and frustrations.
I see your endless search for love and fulfilment.
All this must be, in order for you to come to the end of your own
understanding - then you can hear my voice.
Listen carefully amid the noise of the world and you will hear...
I love you. I shed my blood for you to make you clean.
Give yourself completely to me.
I created you to be just as you are, and you are lovely in my eyes.
Do not criticize yourself or become depressed for not being perfect in your
own eyes. This leads only to frustration.
I want you to trust me one step, one day, one second at a time.
Dwell in my power and my love and be free, of yourself.
Don't allow other people to control you
I will guide you, if you let me, but be aware of my presence in
everything.
I give you patience, love, joy and peace.
Look to me for answers for I am your shepherd and will lead you.
Follow me only! Do not ever forget this
Listen to me and I will tell you my will.
Let my love flow from you and spill over to all you touch.
Be not concerned with yourself - you are my responsibility
I will change you without your knowing it.
You are to love yourself, and love others, simply because I love you.
Take your eyes off yourself, look only at me, I lead, I change, I create,
but
not when you are striving.
You are mine...let me have the joy of making you like Christ.
Your only command is to look to me and me only - never to yourself and
never to others.
Do not struggle, just relax in my love.
I know what is best and will do it in you.
Stop trying to become, and let me make you what I want.
My will is perfect, my love is sufficient. I will supply all your needs...
only look to me>
I love you
Your
Heavenly Father.