True Blessings
By Ray Ingram
Have you ever had a bad dream, one so bad that it alone woke you up. Upon waking you are in fight or flight mode until you can get calm and acclimate back to reality, only to find that you can’t even remember a single detail. I myself have had several such in my life. In fact I was just awoken by a doozie. Well, I think I was, but of course I can’t recall. A quick look at my clock tells me it’s 4:45 a.m., a whole 15 minutes before my alarm is set to go off, so I decide to get up and get my day started. I say a brief prayer of thanks for another day and that today someone who’s lost may be found.
Then it’s Mundane Extravaganza: brush teeth, wash face, start coffee, get dressed, and — just ‘cause I feel like living on the edge today — I eat not one but two strudels. Being ahead of schedule, once at work, I am able to spend a few moments on my BIble app, but the app is all glitchy and it goes directly to James 5:11 which says, “Indeed we count them blessed who endure.” Although my reading plan was in Philippians, I read it, meditated on it, and started the grueling task that is my job. Ah, the joy of adulthood.
At lunch I walk to my favorite sandwich shop. I probably should have driven, but it’s such a beautiful day that I just speed walk so I’ll have time to get there and back and eat, all in my allotted 30 minutes.
I ordered the turkey and swiss and a soda, which to me seems simple enough but turned out not to be so ‘cause the guy behind the counter returns with some kind of pasta meatball po’ boy. Though I’m not one to complain, I’m allergic to tomato sauce, so I ask that it be remade, to which an on-looking employee volunteers to correct my order.
Truth be told, he gave me an extra load of both turkey and swiss cheese to make up for the mistake, but the delay has me full-on sprinting back to work. I barely have time to open my soda when it’s time to get back to my desk, and with no other choice, I put my sandwich in my car on my dash for after work.
The rest of the day I’m frustrated and snappy with my co-workers, and to cap off the day, not even five minutes before quitting time, I get a call from the Police Department saying that there’s been some kind of accident at my house, and can I stop by the station after work.
The police station is closer than the sandwich shop, so I just walk. As I’m crossing the street to the station, someone says, “Hey, hey, excuse me, can you please give me a hand?” So I look in that direction and I see a guy trying to push his truck by himself. He’s wearing extremely worn-out and dirty work clothes; he is a far cry from clean. I jog over and assist him in pushing his truck into the grocery store parking lot. Then he tells me his name — “Randy” — and thanks me.
I excuse myself to rush on to the task at hand. I was told a drunk driver lost control of his car and ran into my house some time this morning. The officer gives me a copy of the report for my insurance company, and just that quick, I’m back in my car and on my way to see the damage.
It’s on my ride that I notice Randy again. Now he’s on the side of the road walking in the direction that I’m going. I slow down and stop behind him.
“Hey, Randy, where you headed? Do you want a ride?”
“OK, man, thanks. What’s your name?”
“It’s Phillip.”
It turns out he’s walking home, which is only a couple of miles from my house. He tells me that he’s a contractor who hasn’t had a job in a while, which is why he ran out of gas while looking to bid on a construction job. Upon hearing this, I made a quick U-turn.
“No, no, I live the way we were going,” he says.
“Oh, I know. Do you have a gas can?”
“In my truck, yeah.”
So I take him to get some gas and give him $100 to fill his truck.
“I can’t accept this. I can’t pay it back. Why would you give me this much?”
“Well, twice now God has put me in your path, so it must be for just this reason.”
After he thanked me at least 10 times, I left him to scoot on over to see the damage that must be my house. The entire front of my house is crushed from my bedroom through the living room and part of the kitchen. The police had kindly put a tarp up, and I’m very thankful that I still have an army cot in the attic so I won’t have to rent a hotel. Once I’m in the house — by way of the back door ‘cause the front one no longer exists — I get a look at all the damage and something just snaps inside. I’m instantly mad.
“God, why have you allowed everything to go wrong from start to finish today? I serve you, I love you, but you seem to take no notice.”
No sooner are these stern (ignorant) words out of my mouth than what appears to be a very large, very shiny, uh .. being. Maybe the timbre of his strong and powerful voice is a wonder in and of itself.
“Hello, highly favored child of God. My name is Expressriel. I have been sent on behalf of the one to which you were just questioning.”
“Uh, I’m sorry. Please have mercy. I’m sorry.”
“Fear not, I’m not here to rebuke, but to enlighten. See, our Father is not afraid of questions or concerns. He above all is well aware how far his ways are from ours and vice versa. Nor are our meager plans or expectations close to equivalent to his. What we see as trials he uses as experience. What we perceive as pain, he allows as punishment for our growth, and since he has the knowledge of the end from the beginning, what we see as evils, God can (and does) turn for good.
OK, let me get to the point. You said something about, start to finish, nothing went right today, and how could God have allowed that. So here’s just a taste, a small portion, a sampler, if you will. Does that vernacular work there? Never mind.
Let’s see. This morning God woke you with a seemingly bad dream precisely 15 minutes earlier than usual so you would be up and out of your house ‘cause at 5 a.m. a drunk driver ran his car in and through your bedroom. God in his omniscience even allowed you time to enjoy not one but two strudels and still be safely out before the accident. He then caused your Bible app to freeze on a specific verse as a hint of your blessings and to endure.
Next the guy who first made your lunch was sick, and God knew you couldn’t afford to miss work, so he had someone else make yours. He even caused it to be “super-sized.” Then the guy who was out of gas, “Randy,” happens to be between jobs and is an excellent carpenter. So you already know who to get to work on your house, plus you know he’s got gas to get back and forth. And to top it all off, you prayed this morning for the lost to be found and Randy has been looking for reasons to believe, which you wittingly gave him with your explanation as to why you helped him.
As an added bonus for his fate will be the work (your house) when he needs it and of course your Biblical guidance while he works, which all combined will be the tipping point in his accepting salvation. The moral of the story, Phillip, is that God’s plan is always better than ours and that he’s working even when we don’t “feel” it. So wake up every day with the anticipation of what God can do with today.
Oh by the way I hear your stomach growling ‘cause you’re hungry, so remember there’s an extra large sandwich in your car.
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