*God has shown me over the past few years that He blesses us in crazy ways because He desires for us to share the goodness of God with others so they will know just how good and real our Heavenly Father is—the following entry demonstrates the reality of God and His goodness—no, no, His Greatness!
As Heidi and I have thought about the future and our desire to have more children, we came to the conclusion that we would need a bigger car if we had more children. We also knew that we couldn’t afford a bigger car, so we started praying that God would give us a van about three months ago.
About six weeks ago, we felt like God was asking us to give away one of our cars. When we felt the call, we were excited—part of the reason for the excitement was that Heidi’s parents have given away a few cars in the past and we specifically remembered story after story from Heidi’s parents about how awesome it is to give a car away when God calls you to do so—with that in mind and the call from God, we decided to follow through. The only question now was, ‘who do we give it to?’
We started to pray for God to lead us to the right person to give it to. One day while praying, God laid a name on my heart. I told Heidi what was on my heart and she said that that was the same person she was thinking about as well. We talked with someone who was good friends with this person to find out whether or not they had a car (without letting them know what we were thinking) and that person told us that the person did have a car but it wasn’t reliable. We didn’t want to make this person feel awkward and we wanted to be sure that person was indeed the one that God wanted to have the car, so we started to pray an unusual prayer. We prayed that God would allow their car to break down as a sign—yes, I know it’s a weird prayer to pray—but we wanted to be sure.
A few weeks later we still hadn’t had confirmation about giving the car away to the person who was on our heart, so we spent a good bit of time in prayer praying that God would not see our inactivity as a lack of faith or trust in Him—rather, we were waiting on Him to make things clear. The next day as we were about to leave for a trip, we got word that the person who we had been praying for car’s broke down. This was the confirmation that we needed and we arranged to have the car delivered to the person God had led us to.
The person who delivered the car called us later that day and said that the recipient of the car was in awe of what God had done. Apparently their car had been messing up a lot lately and they knew that they didn’t have the money to buy another car so they began praying that God would lay it on someone’s heart to give them a car! God had heard all of our prayers. (By the way, we later apologized for praying that their car would break down!)
A few days later, as we were coming home from our trip, we got a phone call from a family member. Apparently God laid on it on their heart a few weeks back to buy an older van from another family member to away give to someone. Long story short, they never bought the van because they waiting to see who God wanted them to give it to. The day before we received the call, God told them to buy the van and give it to us! They were now calling to tell us that they were going to deliver it to our house the next day! They said that they didn’t even know if we needed another car and even apologized because it was a van—little did they know we had been praying specifically for a van for the past three months!!!
And here's a glimpse of the van God gave to us:
As I think about this God story/ encounter, I want to highlight a few things that have rocked our world as we think about what God did—and can do.
There were at least four specific prayer requests that were answered:
1. God answered our prayer about who should we give the car to.
2. The person who God directed us to give the car to had their prayers were answered by God through directing us to give them the car.
3. The family member who God led to buy us the van had their prayers answered about who they should buy the van for.
4. Our prayers were answered as we got the grocery getter—I mean, the van!!!
Here are some other observations that I have made from this God Encounter:
1. When we gave away the car, we were all set to be a one car family for a while, but in God’s perfect timing, we never spent one entire day as a one car family. We gave away the car on Wednesday—the same day went out of town—we came back on Saturday and Sunday, we had the van we had prayed so hard for—Yeah God.
2. We had just put new tires on the car that we gave away a few months ago—the van that God gave us had just had new tires put on it—That’s pretty sweet.
3. Over the years, Heidi’s parents (some of the most generous and Godly people I know) have always taken time to share with us what God is up to in their lives and how He has done some amazing things in their lives when they follow Him (Like when they follow Him when He asks them to give away a car)—so when God called us to trust Him and give away our car, the choice to follow God with this plan was relatively easy because we had had a front row seat to see God at work in Heidi’s parents lives. It’s as if watching how God worked in their lives when they followed Him made it easier for us to follow Him when He asked us to do something wild. As I stated at the beginning of this blog, I think part of the reason God does cool things like this in our lives is so we will share His greatness with the world around us—part of the reason for this, I believe, is so you will see how awesome He is and so you will be ready to follow Him when He calls you to follow. (So, thank you Wesley and Terri— for always taking time to share your God stories with us!)
*I hope after hearing this God story/encounter, you will be ready to follow Him in whatever He is asking you to do today!
Only God can pull this type of stuff off, I mean, you really can’t make this type of stuff up. I hope that you see just how awesome God really is and how much He wants to be a part of our lives. We love you God and we love YOU—Not for all the things you do for us or for the stuff you give us, but simply for who you are!
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1 COMMENTS:
That is awesome! Thanks for sharing that story..it is so encouraging and I think will definitely help others go ahead and DO IT (whatever it is that God is asking them to do). Can't wait to hear about what you're going to fill that van with! ;) besides groceries!
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