Red Light! Green Light!

How often do we run ahead of God because of our impatient spirit? At the close of August, the Lord gave me a pop quiz in trusting Him. We had received the flyer from A.C. Moore and I saw some cubed furniture that I immediately thought would be suitable for organizing Christine's school room. Christine and I drove over to the store to check them out and began to imagine how they would work in our home. That same afternoon, we took both cars thinking, we could place 2 in each car and wah-lah we would be on our way.

Needless to say, as we looked closer to the items, we observed they were not worth the purchase. Next we drove over to Good Wood and found similar items just a tad more expensive. Because we have 2 small cars, we were unable to fix 3 of the quad cubes into our car. We were able to fix the triple cube in and off we were to the races . . . so we thought.

Upon our arrival home, we it in our school room and began to put the books on it. My vision of what I thought would be the idea situation began to fade and I became frustrated. So Christine and I took it back to Good Wood. The salesman even suggested we stack the items. That was an excellent idea but not what we needed to do. The cashier refunded our money and we were back to square one.

Instead of just trusting God's timing, I began to become "cast down." We went on to church and our last night of gardening class was an absolute blast with the children. Normally I walk with my walking buddy but she was not available so that disappointed me a little. Later on I looked on line at http://www.craigslist.com/ North Virginia to see what I could find furniture wise for our school room. Would you believe it? I saw a posting for 2 Bookcases at $55 each from Fredericksburg. Yes, folks from our area post there all the time but until now, I had not seen a posting from here. I cut and pasted their sale number and inquired. I also started praying as well.

That Thursday morning, I received a reply stating the items were available but we would not be able to view them until Friday between 12:00 - 2:00. For some reason instead of trust resting in the Lord, I began to grow more anxious and just allowed the whole situation to overwhelm me. Lest you think, "why on earth would this bother you?" What was bothering me was the fact that I had all our school items in piles in our school room area as well as in the living room area. We live in a townhouse that has restricted space. I literally asked God out loud, "when will we get to have a place that is better suited for our needs?" I thought to myself, why do all my other friends have larger spaces for their school? Thus, my thoughts began to weigh me down and frustration and discouragement took up residency.

By the time Rob got home Thursday evening, I was a mess plus he had a very hard day. In fact, neither one of us got a lot a rest that night. We shared with one another Friday afternoon how we both were in prayer during that time. We did come to this conclusion that we were experiencing a spiritual attack on our family. If homeschooling was something we could do in our own strength, then we would not need our Heavenly Father.

Friday morning after Rob had gone to work, I literally got down on my face towards the east and poured out my heart to my Heavenly Father. It was if the Holy Spirit prompted my heart to pick up my devotional book, "Streams in the Desert 2," and read the reading for the day. It was about having an oasis. I did read it and the Lord used it to gently pull me out of my slump and set my feet on higher ground. He then prompted me to write "An Oasis Is Nearby" to the next posting to my blog. I do encourage you to take the time to read it.

Later on, we received an email from the family that was selling us the bookcases, stating "for $5.00 more, they would deliver it to our house." This does happen from what I have learned but normally it is "cash and carry." The email further stated, "you can come and see them at 1:00 or so." Well, Christine and I had planned to attend REACH's Back To School Party and I would have to either take her to the party and leave her or we would be late for the party altogether. God is good! The folks wrote back and shared that they did not want us to have to change our plans and we could look at the items at 11:30 instead.

Christine and I drove over to Chancellor Village and met up with the gentleman who was offering the bookcases. They were nicer than the picture on Craigs List and I agreed to purchase them. My Dad taught me to do things upfront and honestly so I immediately gave the gentleman the money plus an extra $5.00. He and I loaded up the truck. In fact, he treated me like his daughter and was so helpful and kind. We arrived at our place and just placed the bookcases in the hallway and then he left.

The Holy Spirit prompted me to look more closely at the bookcases. One was facing backwards to the wall and the other was facing frontwards. Guess what I saw stamped on the back of one bookcase? "Ethan Allen." I immediately called Rob and he shared the good news. He jokingly said, "what you like about them is that they match our piano and so forth." I said, no, what I like about them is the fact that they are made by Ethan Allen! By then I was flying high and so very excited how God supplied abundantly and beyond our needs.

Later on that week, I shared my bookcase story with one of our neighbors and shared that we were going to be selling an oak desk. He asked, "may I see that desk?" He dropped by to check it out and asked us to wait 2 weeks before selling it because he wanted it. So we agreed to do so. On his way out, he was sharing that his daughter needing a bookcase because of all her books were scattered about in their place. We had a bookcase that had been given us and it no longer fitted our needs so I helped him carry this bookcase to his house 2 doors down.

You see God does meet our needs in ways sometimes we may not even imagine and then He gives us an opportunity to meet the needs of others. This neighbor is now in the process of moving but we believe we have shared Jesus with Him in several tangible ways as well as verbally.

Before we went on vacation, he and I worked on the front yards together. I mowed and he weed-eated the yards. Recently the Lord impressed on my heart to continue to mow the front yards even if no one says thank you. In fact, the neighbor 3 doors down is moving and I shared with their daughter that we would be missing them because they have been excellent neighbors, she said, "so have you."

Bottom line, we are "Trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not to our own understanding and in all our ways acknowledge Him and He will make our paths straight." God's timing is always on time. It's us that are out of sync, not the Father.

My encouragement to each of us is to be still long enough to listen to the Father and to continue to immerse ourselves in His Word learning passages that speak of God's timing and His great provision. Let's not allow the enemy to control the "spiritual traffic signals" of our lives.

Let's turn our waiting on the Lord into resting in the Lord! What an excellent combination that is.