While in pursuit of great faith I found myself wanting to better understand God’s promises and how they could help me in my life. Even more so, I wanted to understand why I didn’t always get what was promised. One reason was illustrated for me when the verse I was to memorize for my Bible study lesson came to life during a walk through Promiseville.
While walking with my husband Jim and our dog Sandy one Sunday afternoon, I was reciting Luke 11:9 over and over again. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Besides wanting to be able to recite it from memory for my next class, I was also wanting to understand if it was suppose to be three separate promises or if it was a progression of persistence as asked in the lesson.
As I was trying to work it out in my mind, hoping it would eventually all make sense, we came up behind a man who was walking really slowly. So slow that I assumed he had some type of disability. As we passed by him, I said “Hello.” Then I heard him yell up to us and ask “Where is Sunkist School?” I yelled back to him and said “It’s in the other direction, a few blocks down.” But the man waved us on like he didn’t believe me, and said “Oh, that’s okay, I’ll find it.”
As we continued walking, I began to question what the man had said. I couldn’t understand why he would ask where the school was, then ignore the answer and continue in the wrong direction. How did he think he would find it, I wondered. Then the memory verse came to my mind again. I thought; what if you ask, like that man did, but then reject the answer, how will you find? I remembered the question in our lesson about it possibly being a progression. At the time I thought of it as separate steps of faith; first you ask, if you don’t get an answer, then you seek, if you don’t find, then you knock. But the verse said you WILL find, which started me wondering about all the times I thought I didn’t get answers. Could I have actually been given the answer but didn’t recognize it, or ignored it because it wasn’t the answer I expected, or simply didn’t trust it, and that’s why I didn’t find? That man sure gave me a different way to think about it, and it got me thinking he may have been an angel sent to help me understand the verse.
As we started our way home I noticed the man again. This time he was standing up against a tree and seemed to be holding onto it. As we passed by I said to him “Are you alright?” He answered “No, I’m in pain and need help.” Uh oh, I thought to myself, he must not be an angel after all. So, we backed up and asked how we could be of help to him.
He said he was having trouble walking but wanted to get home which was a few blocks down the street. He thought he could make it if one of us walked with him and held onto him. So, Jim held onto the man, I took Sandy’s leash, and we all proceeded to walk towards where the man said he lived. Slowly, at a snail’s pace, we walked. We hadn’t gotten very far when I suggested we go and get our car. The man kept insisting he could make it, but I was thinking at this rate it was going to take the rest of the day and into tomorrow. When he finally agreed, we decided Jim would be faster at getting the car. So, Sandy went with Jim, and I stayed with the man.
We talked as we continued walking. Polite chit chat at first, he told me his name was Bud and I told him mine. Before I knew it we got into quite an interesting conversation when Bud looked at me and said “What you must think of me”. Without thinking I said to him “Oh, you’d be surprised at what I thought of you.” He didn’t say anything but looked curious, like he really wanted to know. At that point I was really tempted to just change the subject out of fear of what he might think of me, but something in me wanted to tell him the truth. So, I bravely said “I thought you were an angel sent from God.” Then he got a strange puzzled look on his face, like he must not have heard me right. So, I recited the memory verse for him and explained that I thought he was an angel from God sent to help me understand it more fully. After telling him the whole story, I asked him if he believed in God. He told me he believed in a Supreme Being. He went on to say that he believed in the Signs and that he was a Capricorn, and that Jesus was also.
Finally, Jim came with the car. Good thing because Bud had some trouble remembering exactly how to get to his house. After pointing us down a few streets we did happen to find his house. Jim pulled into the driveway, immediately I jumped out of the car and knocked on the front door.
When his wife came to the door she was angry, yelling that he had left more than two hours ago to get chicken, and where was it, she asked. I tried to tell her that he wasn’t feeling well and should be checked out by a doctor, but she didn’t seem concerned at all. She said it wasn’t the first time someone has had to bring him home. She yelled at him asking how many he’d had, and where he had left the car. She seemed more concerned about the car than about him. We told her we didn’t know where the car was and left them to their arguing.
As we drove away, there was so much going through my mind. I was so surprised at how it had turned out. How’d I not catch on that he was drunk, I wondered. It’s not like I hadn’t seen people in that condition before. I also thought about how amazing it was that my Bible study had come to life; we asked, seeked, knocked, and got Bud home! I felt really good that I had the courage to share the memory verse with Bud. I prayed that he would remember it, and that it would help him somehow. And later it occurred to me that the car was probably at Sunkist School.
To be continued . . . see Rewardville
To start from the beginning go to messageballs.com
