God Provides a Way When the Numbers Don't Make Sense
Today's testimony is brought to you by our Heavenly Father.
I shared a few days ago that after a while of sitting and waiting for the Lord to give me direction, I sold my broken truck. Every day there was a three-ton reminder of what I used to have just sitting in my driveway. I am sure there was a purpose to the waiting. It changed our family; the freedom to go somewhere when it was needed suddenly had to be planned and arranged. I didn't like it.
One weekend, I felt the leading of the Holy Spirit to start cleaning my garage and selling things that had been taking up space. It went really well. I found a bunch of valuable items, and they sold rather quickly, bringing in the increasingly difficult-to-find money.
As I was moving things from the garage to the driveway, I started leaning chairs on the truck, then piling other things around it. I stopped, looked at it, and thought, "Man, this thing is in the way and taking up space."
At that moment, I felt that I should sell it.
I stopped and went to tell my wife and ask her to pray about it (what a blessing that is), and she said, "I feel you should sell it too." A little while later, I posted it for sale.
Once I finished the ad on Marketplace, it said "in review." Less than one minute after the post was approved, I had a guy say he would be there right now with cash in hand.
That was fast.
That was the Lord.
He showed up, and as expected, he started looking at the tires and other things and wanted to haggle. He offered $500 less. I felt peace about it, so I agreed and sold the truck.
Here is where it really gets interesting.
The amount we originally agreed on, even though not very much, was the price range I started shopping in. With this budget, cars were either very high mileage, had damaged interiors, crashed-up exteriors, or mechanical problems. It was difficult and kind of depressing at first to see what we could afford.
Then the Lord led me to take less money, making my car shopping even worse.
So I thought.
After agreeing with my wife that a smaller SUV would be nice, I started letting go of what I wanted. I looked for anything that stood out.
Then I found it.
At first, the shiny paint caught my eye. That's not normal in this price range.
Perfectly maintained with service records to prove it? Wow.
Brand-new tires too? Dang, Lord!
Let's look a little closer.
After studying each photo and zooming in, trying to locate all the flaws, I noticed something on the back glass. A sticker.
It said, "body piercing saved my life."
At first I thought, "That's lame, I need to take that off," then I noticed the hand of Jesus being nailed to the cross.
I knew right then—before talking to the people, before making an offer, before seeing it in person—we were going to own this vehicle.
I sent them a message and asked if it had any known problems and if I could come see it.
Then I felt prompted to be upfront with them. I told them I could only afford $1,200 less than their asking price. If that wasn't going to work, I didn't want to waste their time, even though I knew what they were going to say.
They responded and said they knew times were tough.
They agreed!
That night, we drove out there, all four of us, and after meeting these fellow followers of God, we drove that nice, shiny SUV home.
God provides a way even when the numbers say there shouldn't be one.
God showed me that not only will He provide, but He will make a way even when it IS impossible in human understanding. Less money should have brought us a worse vehicle.
Instead, we have a vehicle that is so much better than others in the price range that I feel they way underpriced it from the beginning—and we got it for even less than that!
That's what gets me.
Human understanding said that taking less money for my truck meant I would have less to work with. Less money meant fewer options. Fewer options should have meant a worse vehicle.
But God provides a way that doesn't always make sense on paper.
How can I tell this story without glorifying God?
There is no way.
Everything that happened was proof that He was providing and leading us at just the right time. What looked like less became more than enough because God was already ahead of us, making a way we couldn't see.
All glory to God my Father.
Thank you, Father, for one more day. Amen.
