One of the illustrations he used was an incident between he and his wife in which his wife's mistake cost him valuable time and much inconvenience. But he shared how the Lord led him to handle this with gentleness. I imagine most of the men in the congregation wondered if they would have reacted the same way. Well my test came two days later.
A pair of pants that I had been wearing needed to be washed. As I was changing pants my wife came and took the old pair to immediately put it in the washer. Understandably she didn't want the dirty pants hanging in our bedroom when they could quickly be washed and ready to use again. She thought I might need them.
As I was changing, I grabbed my wallet and a few other items which she had taken out of the dirty pants. But I couldn't find my keys. Unfortunately, she had missed checking one of my pockets in which there were my keys, two key fobs and our cell phone. And they were now all being washed in our clothes washer inside my dirty pants. They were only in the washer a few minutes before we retrieved them, but that was long enough for a good soaking. Now the items included the key fob to open our Corolla, the key fob needed to start our Rav4, and of course our only cell phone.
We went to the internet for help and tried placing them in rice and later even using the vacuum cleaner to try to remove the water. Thank the Lord I remained calm but I admit that dollar signs were floating around in my head. I prayed and we left them in the rice overnight. The next morning I was relived to find that both key fobs worked. PTL. But our cell phone still looked like an enclosed aquarium and that wasn't what I wanted to see.
Now let me explain about our cell phone. I signed up for a plan through my employer about 20 years ago. The plan gives me unlimited phone service for $29.95 a month, with no cancellation fees. We don't text because it gets too expensive. And living on a fixed income does not allow us to even have multiple phones or a smart phone. We have lived successfully with one inexpensive dumb phone. My main fear was that in replacing this damaged phone I would need to buy a new contract and pay for much more expensive features. But I continued to pray and the Lord kept me calm.
So off I went to visit AT&T at Park City, using my dry key fob. I went fearing what I would find as well as fearing the long walk to the store. This was troubling because my leg problems have limited my ability to walk very far, especially on hard surfaces. And I continued to pray.
When I arrived at Park City I was amazed to find that the closest parking space to the entrance was open. I parked right there. When I limped into the store I was stunned to see the exact duplicate of our phone hanging on the all. The problem is that its purchase required a two year contract. Surprisingly a saleswoman quickly came to my aid. When I explained the situation she told me that she would sell this phone to me for just $15 plus tax and I could keep my old contract. Now why was I so amazed when I had prayed about it?
The Lord reminded me of the folks mentioned in the book of Acts who were gathered and praying for Paul when he was in prison. When the Lord released him and he showed up at their door they didn't believe that it was him. Sometimes the Lord answers our prayers despite our weak faith.
The final obstacle was to replace the 50+ telephone numbers that we had stored, many of which we hadn't saved elsewhere. So I sent out an e-mail to many of the folks who we call and within about 48 hours responses from most of them enabled me to open a new address book in our new cell phone.
I am thankful that the Lord allowed me to be understanding and hopefully gentle in my responses. I am not always that way. However, I guess in now sharing my "gentle" reaction publicly, I have also failed one of the other characteristics in the pastor's message - humility.
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