Tested

I hate it when things do not go as planned or, even worse, turn and actually go badly. But when God starts teaching me about leaning fully on Him regardless of the circumstances, I know that the lessons will be tested at some point. He will put me in a position where I live the truth so it may be transferred from head knowledge to experiential, intimate knowledge.

This morning was one of those test times. Without going into the insane details, let’s just say that my husband broke down on his way to a meeting and then I had car problems on my way to pick him up! I never made it to him as we both experienced one problem after another. To top it all off, the kids and I finally arrived back home to not one but two snakes in the garage. Relatively harmless black snakes, true, but snakes nonetheless.

The beautiful thing about this morning, though, is that our amazing, wonderful, powerful, incredible God was so much more visible than our problems.

• He kept us from driving either vehicle on an out-of-state trip last weekend, nudging multiple church members to loan us their vehicles instead. Neither of our vehicles would have made the trip.

• I had moderate battery power on my cell phone this morning, but I felt very strongly that I needed to go ahead and charge the phone. Nearly fully charged by the time I left the house, my battery made it through the whole ordeal despite the fact that we cannot charge phones in the car I was driving.

• Not one, not two, but five different church members were in the right place to help us out, including the ones who were out of town. We didn’t even need them all, but we realized after all was said and done that no matter what decisions we made, someone would have been in the right place to help or provide a ride. We had options!

• The biggest beauty of all, though, was that another church member felt very, very strongly that he needed to be praying over my whole family today. God used His prayers to not orchestrate His provision so incredibly, but to also rain peace and wisdom down on us and everyone who came to help us. We never felt panic. We never felt stressed. We never felt anxious. We just walked through each step of the morning with a sense of God’s presence and control. Even our children radiated that peace. They were perfect angels the whole time, living in perfect trust every step of the way.

There are much greater problems than car issues, but there’s nothing like a series of problems hitting one after another to wear down an attitude of peace and trust. It’s one thing to take a deep breath at the beginning and say, “God’s got this!” But when circumstances continue to fall apart from there, it becomes easier and easier to break down. The truth that He wants us to realize is that He is no less in control in a series of problems than He is in a single problem. He never throws up His hands and says, “Well, I could have handled the first couple, but now you’re just on your own!” Instead, He wants to take our trust at step one and advance it to step two.

We still await the mechanic’s phone call letting us know what’s wrong with the van and how much the repairs will cost. We still know that both of our vehicles are well over a decade old. They both have over 200,000 miles on them. The circumstances of today have not been resolved. The testing is not over. But, God has proven Himself faithful once again. He’s not going to stop now.

Thank You, Lord, for lessons! Thank You that those lessons are never left to simply head knowledge. And thank You that when our learning is tested, You never walk away. Ever!