It is time for A Word For Wednesday. A Few minutes ago, I posted A Word for Wednesday on our YouTube Channel. Please give it a listen and leave us a comment here or on YouTube.
Please stay with me on this today. This may seem like another bus post, but it is hopefully much more. My main goal is to tell you how God is sometimes in the glitches. Press through to the end.
I am on record on Mile Markers explaining why bus glitches, car glitches, PA glitches or any other kind of glitches that suddenly go away are a mixed blessing to me. Often the bus or anything else malfunctions and I do not know the answer and can not "fix" the problem.
All of a sudden, the issue goes away and everything is running smooth and I do not know how to respond. That leaves me lifting my hands in praise while scratching my head in befuddlement.
I am obviously thankful each time that we are no longer having a problem, but there is a nagging suspicion, based on experience, that the complication is gonna show up again when I least expect it and when I am less equipped to handle it. 😊
Twice before now, a dragging tag axle brake, the same thing that turned us around in Tennessee, has reared its ugly head only to resolve itself without us knowing exactly what caused it. The first time was December 2018 and it left us frazzled and thankful. You can read that HERE.
Two years later, nearly the same scenario played out again with the opposite tag axle. One morning it was dragging a bit, but when we stopped it was completely released and we could not get the dragging to duplicate. Again, we were thankful but perplexed and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
When we arrived back at Jeff's shop on May 17, the brakes were not releasing completely when I lifted my foot off the brake, but they did release each time I turned off the parking brake. That gave Jeff some direction and after a few repairs, as described HERE, the brakes were releasing fine.
We believe the nagging situation with the occasional glitches is now solved. Time will tell for sure, but all seems well. We feel a whole lot better about it, I know that definitely.
We intended to drive 400 miles Tuesday and 400 miles Wednesday. That would have put us well on the way to our destination. Instead, we drove a 26 mile circle and finally left Jeff Rowe's shop 18 hours after we originally departed. So by Wednesday evening, we ended up a day late and about 600 miles short of our goal. Why?
Did God do that? Did God allow that? Does He care that we have a schedule to keep, places to go and things to do for His kingdom? The answer is maybe to the first question and yes, yes, yes and yes to the next four questions.
God is certainly aware of every little thing we are dealing with. Please consider, He may have other plans. We need to be perceptive when encountering obstacles on our path.
This may not be the case every time, but sometimes glitches seem to happen so that we can discover and solve another problem OR so that we can be in the right place at the right time.
We pray daily that God puts us in the path of the right people and that He allows us to be sensitive to His work in our hearts and the hearts of people we meet along the way.
When we have difficulties we start looking for some divine opportunity along the way. He may be slowing us down and opening and door for us to minister to a person or in a place that we would have zoomed by at 65 MPH otherwise.
We definitely walked into God's will as a result of our bus glitch last week. A precious family that we had never met before, poured their broken hearts out to us within moments of speaking to them and we spent nearly two hours listening to them and offering a very few words of comfort along the way.
Mostly we listened and wept. The recent difficulties they have endured can only be described as nightmare material. It is the kind of thing you want to wake up from, but you never do. They talked and unburdened their hearts and we tried to help bear a small corner of their heavy load.
They have definitely been part of our prayers since that day and will continue to be for a long time to come. Did God orchestrate that? Maybe.
IF we had been able to drive to our desired destination Tuesday, we would have completely missed an amazing opportunity to love on people and listen to people that desperately need to experience the strength of God at this very moment.
Sometimes God may be in the glitches.
Does that make sense to you? I make sense when I say it to myself.
Are you struggling with unexpected difficulties? Stop a moment, look around and listen attentively. You may find that you are come to the kingdom of God for such a time as this.
Thank you for reading today.
Davy
