Devotional
Cast Your Cares on Him
Walking with the Lord does not relieve us of the burdens of this world. Walking with the Lord gives us a place to lay our troubles. When I’m feeling pressed in from all sides, I know in my heart Poppa has all of this, it’s my job to do the work at hand and leave the big picture stuff to Him.
I find myself far from home today. It’s nearly 3000 miles from Ft St John British Columbia to Warner Robins Georgia. Even though I flew all over the world during my military career, I feel like I’m farther from home than I’ve ever been. Perhaps because I don’t have the infra structure of the US government supporting me or maybe it’s because of the remote location of this racing facility, regardless it’s an odd feeling for me.
Walking in the Anointing
There has only been one time that I’ve gone against the Lord’s will for my life and the ministry since returning to the Father’s house. When we started JAMA, the one thing He told me to do was to give everything away for free (books, bibles, sermons, music, food, etc) and He would always provide for the ministry. Some how we convinced ourselves we could sell t-shirts and that would not violate what He had asked us to do. So we went ahead and had them made up and attempted to sell them.
Attempted is probably the best way to put it, because they did not sell even though folks had told us they would buy them. I think we only sold 2 or 3 before the conviction of what we had done set in. We gave the rest of them away and attempted to find the person who had bought them so we could give them back their money…unfortunately we could not find them.
Allowing God to Promote
When we first started Dragstory.com, we thought the Lord would use that program to provide a source of revenue for our company. Everything we did to promote that program failed. We went to trade shows, sent hundreds of proposals to possible advertisers and did everything in our power to promote the business with zero results. Yes, Z E R O results.
We were a little more than perplexed. The response from drag racing enthusiasts for our version of event coverage was well received, yet no one was interested in advertising with us. We knew the Lord was in our efforts, just uncertain why we could not find financial support for our program.
Our Work Versus Our Value
Most men base their value in what they can do with their knowledge, abilities, hands or a combination of the two. I was no different. If the job I was tasked to accomplished failed or did not meet the standards, I considered it a personal affront to me as an individual. That all changed on March 3rd, 2001. I went from being a man of the world to a child of the living God. On that day the transformation of understanding who I am in Him and the value He places on my life began.
Death Works in You
I have driven nice cars and I have driven junk. I now drive my wife’s car, a classic 1984 Firebird…that’s right, I don’t have a car of my own. That may seem odd to some folks, but since we gave my GMC Suburban to another ministry back in 2003, there really has not been a need. I was driving our 15 passenger ‘church van’ we used to tow our race/ministry trailer. Once I retired and we started our own business, there really was no need for more than 1 car in our household. It’s simply amazing what you can learn to live with when you no longer have something you thought you had to have.
My car was my pride. It was always clean, vacuumed and serviced. When the Lord asked me to give my truck to another ministry, I simply ignored Him. I had heard stories of people giving away cars and other worldly possessions and always thought that was really nice, but when it came time for me to do the same it was different. Yea, seems silly, it was just an old Suburban, but it was MY Suburban! After a few weeks of the Holy Spirit urging me to do as the Lord had asked, I finally did. I made the call, signed the title and set up a time to drop the truck off.
How’s Your Joy Quotient?
Long days and short nights, that best describes our last week on the road. We left Michigan on Sunday afternoon heading to Edmonton Alberta for our next event. I knew going in it would be one of the harder legs on our 7 week trip, simply because of the number of miles we had to drive each day and the need to be at the next location by Wednesday at the latest.
We would hit traffic and road construction within the first hour and drive through that environment for the next 6 hours. It included all of the normal trappings of zippy drivers, people with attitude and the standard cut throat driving tactics you find in any major thoroughfare. Add a few problems with your equipment and It’s enough to drive anyone over the edge.
Proving the Word of God
A few weeks back, our youngest son was lamenting about all the ‘stuff’ he seemed to be going through with his job and the business. My wife looked at him and told him the following. “When you dad was learning his job as a flight engineer in the US Air Force, he had all kinds of emergencies during the first few years he was flying. These difficulties drove him to learn more about his job and the airplane he flew. The results was it made him one of the best flight engineers in the business. That’s what the Lord is doing with you and the troubles you are experiencing.” He stopped, looked at her with a smile and said, “wow, really?”
That statement changed his perspective on what was happening. The troubles became learning opportunities for him in trusting the Lord with his life and gave him a deeper understanding of the mission our Father has him on.
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