Well, having said that about peace, I have had quite a challenge to my own peace recently. I am sharing this rather personal story with the hope that it will be an incentive to some of you reading this as I feel the issue is an important one. And besides, I believe it's the Lord who wants me to share it for the same reason and after all, it's really His story anyway. So here goes.
I had to make a financial decision. I felt the Lord was telling me to sell an automobile that was of fairly substantial financial value as well as having emotional value to me because of the way I had obtained the car. But at this point, because of an accident I had which upped the insurance rate on the car it was putting a monthly burden on me. I have had no debt at all for over eleven years but lately I had a few expenses that meant I now had some debt. Selling the car and purchasing a less expensive one would enable me to get out of debt plus reduce my monthly costs.
But every voice in my life, family and friends, whomever I spoke with told me wisdom dictated that I keep the car and just pay off my debts over time like everyone else.
What to do? Was I
really hearing from God? Isn’t there
wisdom in the advice of many counselors, as the bible says? Could the unity in the advice of EVERYONE
in my immediate set of close friends and family really be God speaking to me
rather than what I thought He was saying to me?
I spent much time wrestling with
this issue and the more I wrestled, the more my stomach hurt. That peace I was
talking about – gone! Or at least
seriously misplaced. What a struggle.
A few days ago I was told by yet one more of my “advisors”
that I needed some counseling to deal with my emotions because I wasn’t seeing
things clearly having a fear of being in debt and that debt was what everyone deals with. Well, I had once also been in debt and I know the difference between debt and no debt. Being in debt feels like a loss of freedom to me. As I held this before the Lord,
what came to me is that God doesn’t owe anyone anything. The Bible tells us
that, “The heart of the borrower is in
the hand of the lender.” That’s how
it felt, as if my heart was not entirely my own. Someone else had a hold of it. Though it wasn't what might be considered by some to be a great deal of money, I was surely not at peace about owing it. The Bible also says to “Owe no man anything but to love him.” That's the only kind of owing I prefer.
That sounds ridiculous in this day and age, but the debt of
this nation and the debt of this culture we live in today is not normal or safe. I’ve
heard more than a few prophetic preachers saying “Get out of debt as soon as
you can.” Some have stated that they see
a financial crises coming – even this year.
Well, I’ve heard that before but I must admit I have the same inkling. Some concern has been linked perhaps to Passover (4/3-11) or Sukkot (9/27-10/4). I was recently called “Chicken Little” and
accused of fearing that the sky would fall, when I told someone my thoughts
in this regard. I'm not fearful, but I guess time will tell whether it happens or not.
After being in this conflict much too long, I came to the
Lord this week and made a decision. I would rather
put my trust in Him and what I believe He was saying to me than disregard what
I felt was what He was telling me to do and choose everyone else’s advice
instead. After all, everyone else was in debt themselves in some way. Perhaps my wanting so badly to be free of
debt made them uncomfortable with their own debt, though if the truth be told,
I bet everyone who is in debt feels the stress of it in some way. But the reason I made that
decision is that I opted to obey God. I chose
to trust in God. I would go with what I believed He had been telling me even
though it meant going against what people thought. Part of the struggle, I admit, was having to
disregard what people I’m close to thought of me. I decided I cared more what
God thought than what they did.
Still, was it an emotionally weighted decision? You bet. But the minute I made the choice to
go with God my peace began to return. I
have the sense that my life would go differently if I chose to go the way of
what now seemed worldly advice as I doubt any of them had prayed about what they were telling me, rather than go with what I felt the Lord had been telling
me. Trust the Lord and He’ll give you more to trust Him with. Doubt He
is trustworthy and you’ll miss the opportunities of increased blessings. The
whole bible reads like that from Abraham forward: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own
understanding.” Those are the words of King Solomon and he was supposed to
be wise, right? To this to I might
add: ...and lean not on the understanding of
others, even those who love you. By not
leaning on your own understanding it means not to make decisions only based on how
you see things without input from or reliance upon God, but acting
independently instead. I made the decision
that I would put my trust in God regardless of what the voices around me were
saying.
So here’s what happened.
I put the car on Criaglist.com for a certain price. No calls. The
second day I felt to reduce the price and continued to pray that God would send just the
right buyer. That evening I got a call
from a gentleman asking about it. It was
pouring rain and about 9:30 at night. He wanted to come then to see it.
Now? Now. Okay.
He liked it, but he’d have to talk to his wife about it. They both came
back the next day and decided they would
purchase it.
We wound up spending a good bit of the day together and
after he finally had to go off to work, the wife and I went and had lunch together. We had
become immediate friends. As it turned
out, they had given – that is GIVEN – away a car of almost exactly like this one for the same amount of money to someone
when God had told them to. Obviously they had been in a position to do it but still, it was quite an act of obedience. The woman to whom they had given it to said that she was feeling suicidal as she didn’t believe God even knew who
she was anymore or cared what she was going through. This made such a
difference in her life. It had given her hope.
Now, here, sometime later, God had not only somewhat supernaturally provided the cash to purchase this car without financing it but here I was selling it for the same amount that they had paid for the car they had given away in obedience to the Lord.
Add to this that the Lord had told this couple to get entirely out of debt by this winter. They had purposed to do so. They had obediently sold an even more expensive automobile. The tenant of a rental property they owned called and said he wanted to buy the house without their having advertised it. They sold their high end large home by the time winter had come, officially December 21st of this year, and had moved south to another city, to where they felt God was leading them, which happened to be my city. They had downsized to where they owed nothing including no mortgages and were now renting a nice home. The car they had purchased from me was not a frivolity but a necessity and they were able to pay cash for it. We were clear confirmation to one another that God had said the same thing to both of us - get out of debt to the best of your ability - now!
[Note: Everyone of us is in a different situation and we each need to know what God is saying specifically to us in regard to debt, or mortgages, or possibly downsizing.]
Now, here, sometime later, God had not only somewhat supernaturally provided the cash to purchase this car without financing it but here I was selling it for the same amount that they had paid for the car they had given away in obedience to the Lord.
Add to this that the Lord had told this couple to get entirely out of debt by this winter. They had purposed to do so. They had obediently sold an even more expensive automobile. The tenant of a rental property they owned called and said he wanted to buy the house without their having advertised it. They sold their high end large home by the time winter had come, officially December 21st of this year, and had moved south to another city, to where they felt God was leading them, which happened to be my city. They had downsized to where they owed nothing including no mortgages and were now renting a nice home. The car they had purchased from me was not a frivolity but a necessity and they were able to pay cash for it. We were clear confirmation to one another that God had said the same thing to both of us - get out of debt to the best of your ability - now!
[Note: Everyone of us is in a different situation and we each need to know what God is saying specifically to us in regard to debt, or mortgages, or possibly downsizing.]
As the wife and I had lunch together, she turned out
to have an interest in the Jewish roots of Christianity and the Feasts of Israel,
all those kinds of things that my life is all about. So we felt that God had put us together as kindred souls. Plus they had prayed that the Lord would lead them to the right car to purchase just as I had prayed He would bring whom He wanted to have it. This was more than a transaction for a car, the whole thing
had the Lord all over it. There were so many confirmations that not only was I
to have sold it but that it was this very couple who was to purchase it. The Lord
had arranged the whole thing. I love when those kinds of things happen that prove how involved God is with our individual lives. My peace
was entirely restored and so was my amazement once again at how “God works all things together for those who
love Him.” If ever I had a set of lessons on always trusting the Lord, this
was it.
So I leave you with these thoughts: The Lord is worthy of your trust, even when
logic and even your own emotions may say otherwise if that’s how you feel He’s leading you, or what you’ve
heard Him say to you either directly or through His word. Protect your God-given peace. Value it beyond anything else, for in it is
the wisdom from above – where God is, that He can see the down the road and
knows what’s best for each of us.
Secondly, I share with you what I have heard from Him, to be
careful what you put great value on, because many things that are considered of
value today may cease to have the same value. That which is of the greatest
value is peace with God. He will take
care of you and provide for you. That means put what you own in proper perspective.
Let your treasure be in heaven, that is to say, value your relationship with Yeshua (Jesus) beyond whatever is in the here and now and over what people may think of you. What we have today will last only for a time,
but what we have with Him lasts forever.
This life on earth will be ours for just so long but peace with God carries with it an eternal
weight of glory!
To anyone to whom the peace of God is alien to you, or if you’ve never put your trust in the Lord before, or you
find that you’re not sure about where the real value is in your life – talk to
Him. He will listen. He will hear you. And He will let you know He does. He cares not only about you, but for you –
with a loving heart beyond what you can imagine. Tell Him the things that are on your
heart. Those things you’re afraid of
anyone knowing? He already knows them. He’s just waiting for you to open up
your own heart and unburden yourself to Him so He can release you from the weightiness
of misplaced values and trusting in your own understanding that turned out not
to be wise after all. He is the God of forgiveness and of comfort. Put your life and all you own in His hands.
So is your forever! He can take better care of both much more than you can.
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