Kingdom of Life

Not too long ago, my friend, Fred, told the rest of us in our Sunday School class about an experience he had which illustrates some important things about our relationship with God. I recently asked him to write down what happened so I could share it with you here:

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My friend Andy asked me to put into words an experience I had when God was watching over me and answered an immediate prayer concern of mine.

So here goes

I travel a lot with my business and sometimes I get caught up in trying to “handle” everything. I had driven to the Dallas, Tx area one week to get one of my crews started on a job there and I had “handled” pretty much everything. Before I left to head back to Georgia in the morning there were some last minute things that came up and I ended up giving the guys all my cash.

I should add that while I was at the hotel getting rooms a young lady approached me crying because she didn’t have gas money to get to Dallas. I gave her 10.00 dollars and told her I would pray for her safe travel. Which I did.

I drove most of the day back to Georgia but around 10:30 pm central time I realized I was going to have to stop for gas. It was then that I realized that I didn’t have any money. To make matters worse I didn’t have any money in my acccount that I had a debit card for. My thought process was, what do I do? First I gave my truck a thorough search and came up with 7.25 which I put in my tank. Then I called my wife to try and get her to wire me some money. It was too late in the day for that so I took my 7.25 worth of gas and kept going. I made it to metro Atlanta with my low fuel light on for the last 50 miles. I drove that far with it on because I had calculated how far I could go based on MPG and how big my gas tank was, etc. So there I was in Atlanta at 1:30 am EST with no gas and no money. I tried everything I could think of. I tried to transfer money to my ATM card, I tried to make a purchase with other cards I had. Nothing worked. So I resigned myself to sitting in my truck until morning when I could take care of things. While I was sitting in my truck I FINALLY talked to God about the situation I was in. I apologized for not talking to him earlier, but like I said before I sometimes get caught up in trying to “handle” things. When I had finished praying I felt a lot better about my plight. I went into a Kroger grocery store that was in the plaza parking lot I was sitting in. I figured I would get a soda pop or something. There were only two women in the store (it was almost 2:00 am) and when I walked through the door one women said to the other “there he is”. I had to ask what she meant and she asked me if I went to church and if I believed in God. I told her I did and then she told me how she had been telling her friend how she was too worried about money all the time and, in trying to help with that, she needed to just give ten dollars to the next person who walked through the door. That’s why she said “there he is” when I walked through the door. She then asked me what I needed. I responded, honestly, that I needed ten dollars for gas to get home and then I told her my story and that I had been sitting out in my truck praying for God to forgive me but also for His help. When they heard all that they started running around screaming and carrying on. It was hillarious. We prayed together and I left (with ten dollars).

As a footnote;

My truck gets 18 or 19 mpg and that’s based on the 190,000 miles I have driven in the last 3 1/2 years. I had been driving for 50 miles with my low fuel light on. Realistically, 10 dollars shouldn’t have even turned off my low fuel light, but I ended up with 1/4 tank and in the 52 miles home my low fuel light never came on that night or the next day on my way to the gas station.

How many gallons of gas do you think I pumped into my 25 gallon gas tank that morning? I know how many.

Don’t be afraid to ask Him and by the way he “handles” things a lot better than I do.

Thanx for asking Andy, remembering that day made my day.

Fred