Encouragement
Ahh, Faith; to some it is a fairy-tale belief, to others it is the only way to live. I think I am somewhere in the middle and sometimes get batted about in my faith by circumstances. My faith is small, but so much bigger than before. I always was of the thought that "God says it, I believe it, and that settles it." It was easy to say, but I never really believed. As I reflect back on many of the "small" miracles the Lord did for me to build my faith, I wonder why in the world he just didn't give up. But he didn't. When I say "small" miracles that doesn't mean they were small, they were quite large and answers to my prayers, but I wasn't paying that much attention at the time and so did not realize even what God had done.
When we first went into business we would operate on 90-day notes. The first year, one of the notes were due in a few days and there was no money. I prayed and worried and prayed some more. The weekend before the note was due, we had an especially large amount of sales and the loan was covered plus a little extra. Soon I forgot that answer to prayer and the Lord provided another and another and another.
It took many years to build my faith as I am apparently a slow learner or just a plain-dumb sheep. I still struggle when there is a crisis sometimes, but other times there is no doubt that the Lord will take care of the situation. One of these times a few years ago, my son lived about 35 miles from town and had to get up early and drive to work. He had a clunker car that was quite heavily built. At four o'clock one morning I woke up and prayed for his safety. It was a simple prayer - "Keep him safe." That's all I said and I fell back asleep. The phone rang at 5 which my husband answered. He woke me up and said he had to go because our son had been in a wreck. I was left standing there wondering if he was dead or alive. A little later my husband called and said he seemed fine, but they were going to take him to the hospital to check him out. As it turned out he had a slight concussion, no broken bones or cuts, nothing.
Now for the miracle part - He was tired and he fell asleep at the wheel. He went off the road, hit a mail box, went airborne and came down on the nose of the car and rolled end on end. He was not strapped in and should have been thrown out - he wasn't. The state trooper took one look at the car and figured he had a fatality on his hands. A friend of ours talked to that trooper afterwards and the trooper told him that my son should have died. Our friend said, "I know his mother, she prays for him all the time and that is why he is OK."
That was a very large miracle for me, but you know that the Lord cares for us and for every little problem we have. Do not EVER not pray because you think you are bothering him or that your problem is not big enough or does not deserve an answer. The little requests are the ones that he delights in answering because it builds your faith and gives you strength to get through something a little harder the next time.
I have learned that if I wake up in the middle of the night it is to pray for someone. Sometimes the Lord will bring someone to mind and sometimes not, but I pray anyway and asking that He intervene where it is needed. There is always more to the story of faith and answered prayer, but for now - think on it and keep on praying.
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