|
I glanced down at the gas gauge for the hundredth
time in the past ten minutes. The
needle seemed to be plummeting downwards, and with each passing kilometer, it
came nearer to its final resting point: “E.”
Under normal circumstances
this might not have been a problem.
I would simply have pulled into the nearest gas station and filled
up. But,
these weren’t normal circumstances.
The next gas station was 120 km down the road, and at the rate the
gauge was dropping, I’d be lucky to make it a
quarter that far.
I sighed for the hundredth
time in ten minutes. What were we
going to do? In my mind I
immediately began to chide myself for my poor judgment. When we had started out on this trek to
see what the Saskatchewan
tour book described as “desert-like conditions with cactus and sand dunes,”
we had known we didn’t have much gas, and we had
also known that there might not be too many gas stations along the way! But, ever the
cocky one, I pushed these worries aside.
After all, this was farm country, and farmers had to buy gas
somewhere! Well I still don’t know where all of those farmers buy their gas, but
certainly not on that road leading out of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan!
My eye dropped to the gauge
again. Another sigh. The needle was even lower. There was nothing left to do but pray,
and that I began to do.
Fervently! “Lord,” I began,
“here I am again, nearly out of gas, and I know good and well you tried to
warn me to fill up before leaving Moose
Jaw! Lord,
I honestly thought there would be gas out there! Lord, . . .” and I continued to
babble.
Over the back of my babble
I could hear someone trying to interrupt, but it wasn’t
until I hushed long enough to listen that I could understand the
words: “Lyn, give ME the
problem. Let ME take care of
it!”
“But . . . Lord . . . I
KNOW You! You just might look at
this as an opportunity to teach me a lesson, and no matter how badly I need
to learn that lesson, NOT HERE LORD!
Running out of gas would ruin our vacation!”
But when I stopped for breath, I heard Him again: Lyn, give ME the problem. Let ME take care of it!”
I’d like to say that I gave in then and there, but I
didn’t. God and I proceeded to argue
for several more minutes. In fact, I
didn’t stop until the “YOU NEED GAS” light came
on! Great! Now what!
I had no options whatsoever.
Except . . . Except what God was telling me to do! And, I gave
in. “Okay, Lord!” I said with a sigh. “It’s Your problem! I accept whatever you want to teach me
with this! Thank you for taking care
of us!”
My son, who had obviously
been watching the gas gauge from the back seat, immediately called out,
“Mom! The gas light just went
off!”
Sure enough, it had. The moment I surrendered that gas
situation to God, the light went off.
We made it back to Moose Jaw without
incident, but when we pulled into the first available gas station; my
husband put 79 litres of gas into our van. Our van’s tank holds exactly 79 litres.
“We were running on air,
mom!” piped in my youngest son.
“No, son,” I said, rather
humbly, “we were running on Jesus!”
The doubt didn’t set in until I was making my daily run around the
campground the next morning. I found
myself thinking, “You know, I bet we wouldn’t have run out of gas
anyway! There may not have been a
“miracle.” We had enough gas! After all, you always have a few litres left in the tank when the light comes on!”
Ashamed of my thoughts, I
turned to God, fully expecting Him to assure me that a miracle had, indeed,
occurred. He didn’t. Instead, what I heard from the Lord was
this: “What does it matter if there
was a miracle in the gas tank or not?”
“Huh?” cried my heart. “What do you mean, ‘what does it matter?’ It matters a lot! So many people just write off your
miracles as things that would have happened anyway. I want to be able to prove to the world
that You are still in the miracle business!”
God’s reply? “It doesn’t matter if it was a miracle in
your gas tank or not! A miracle
still occurred!”
“Huh?” I repeated.
“A miracle still
occurred!” He repeated. “You gave Me the problem. You let Me worry about the gas. You passed the test!”
I nodded my head, but I was
still confused. “And so . . .”
“When you surrendered the
gas to me, you were filled with peace!”
True enough.
“You stopped worrying and
fretting!”
“Yes . . . but . . .”
“The important thing that
happened yesterday was NOT that you DIDN’T run out of gas, but that you DID
succeed in surrendering a huge problem with horrible significance into My
hands! You passed the test. The miracle happened in your heart!”
It only took a moment of
contemplation for me to understand: I had been looking for a miracle in the
gas tank; God had been looking to work one in my heart. It didn’t matter
whether we really would have run out of gas or not. A miracle had most certainly taken place!
Friends, the reason we are
allowed to suffer trials is not always that God wants to work miracles in
our surroundings, but that God wants to work miracles in our hearts! “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our
sufferings, because we know that suffering produces PERSERVERANCE;
perseverance, CHARACTER; and character, HOPE. And hope does not disappoint us, because
God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has
given us.” (Rom 5:3-5 NIV)
The next time you are
running on air, either literally or figuratively, remember to give God the
problem. Only then will you see the biggest
miracle, the miracle of the heart!
In His love,
Lyn Chaffart,
author, moderator, The Nugget, The Illustrator, Scriptural Nuggets website
(www.sermonillustrator.org/minisermons/
), Answers2Prayer Ministries, www.Answers2Prayer.org
|
