It’s already done.
Note: this is a little long but please read to the end.
This is an amazing scripture. First, read it slowly and let
it sink in. Maybe even read it a couple of times before you go on.
“I will answer them before they even call to me. While they
are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers!”
– Isaiah 65:24
Reading this today I was taken back to an incident in my
life that I’ll share with you here. First, I’ll give you a little background.
From the moment my mother knew that she was going to have
another child and told my father—still in the womb—my life started down a path,
not of my choosing. Upon hearing the news, my father spoke these words. “I don’t
want another child. You could get rid of it. You could abort it. They do things
like that.”
Because I’ve lived with the consequences of those words
spoken over my life, no one can tell me otherwise. My father’s words went into
my mother and landed in me. I came into this world with a death wish for my own
life. From the earliest moment I can remember I hated myself. I found nothing
good, no redeemable quality about me and certainly didn’t have any hope of ever
seeing myself deserving to live.
Therefore, every moment of every single day I lived without
hope of seeing the next five minutes. Do you know what that is like? You watch
the world making plans for vacations, or having a five-year plan or where they
would see themselves in ten years—I couldn’t see myself being here in the next
five minutes. I even acted on those feelings and took the internal threat
seriously one day and it failed. As you see, I’m still here.
But it wasn’t enough just to have failed to take my own life—something
had to change. When I realized that I had failed and was still facing
everything I wanted to get away from, the depression and self-loathing were
even greater. What was I to do now? The next part that I feel I must share with
you if I’m going to be completely honest is that I was a Christian at the time.
So how did this happen? Where was God? I’d accepted Him as
my savior. I was walking in a newness of life. I was going to church regularly.
I was reading my Bible. My life had drastically changed. I did see significant
changes. I wasn’t the same person I had always been. So why this?
When the Holy Spirit comes into us at the moment of rebirth
we step into a lifestyle that is so foreign to us. It’s as if we have been
dropped down into another country not knowing the language, or the customs, and
certainly don’t know where to go or what to do.
This is what stepping into the Kingdom of God is like. It’s
so totally different than how we have been living since the moment we came into
this world. The good news is God already knew this would happen. He knew that
what He would ask us to do now that we took the first step would be utterly
impossible for us to do. Seems strange, doesn’t it?
Why would God ask us to do things, even give us commandments
to do certain things, knowing that we couldn’t do them? Doesn’t seem like a
kind thing to me. There are so many promises about spiritual weapons that we
use on the outside of us but what I want to express in this posting is that we
need to examine not the attacks that come to us from the outside but the
internal war that is already within us.
But, here is the even better news—He gave us the Holy Spirit
abiding within us to DO everything God asks through Him. The Word says that the
Holy Spirit is sent to be our helper. Comforter. Guide. Teacher. And most of
all to tell us exactly what He hears the Father saying and relay it to us. Whew,
what a relief. We don’t have to go it alone anymore in this world. We don’t
have to try and figure out life. So my next question is why then do we keep
trying to navigate life on our own even when we have the Holy Spirit living on
the inside of us?
That was the introduction, now I’ll get to the example.
Because I never saw a future this meant that I never planned for anything. I
lived within every day. I was raising a child by myself and worked tirelessly every
day just to make ends meet.
I had a car that looked and ran like it wouldn’t make it
back into my driveway. It had reached a point where I didn’t know when I would
get in it, and it was done for. I was lying on my mother’s couch feeling so
overwhelmed with life anyway that having to even think about getting another
car was catastrophic. I was literally physically ill thinking about it. Even my
mother noticed that something was wrong with me. She asked me if I was alright and
at the same time I heard the voice I had come to recognize as the Holy Spirit telling
me to get up and take my car to a local car dealership.
At that moment I thought I had sincerely lost it. Somehow, with
some physical strength enabling me to move off the couch, I stood up and walked
out the door. All the way to the car lot I was screaming inside. What was I
doing?! Why was I purposely doing this to myself! What did I even think would
come from this insane act!?
At this point, everything I was doing had to have been God
in me. When I got out of my car and a smiling eager salesman walked out to
greet me I almost threw up in his face. Of course, he greeted me with, “Hello,
what can I do for you today?”
I wanted to say, “Just shoot me now and get it over with.”
But thankfully I didn’t. Somehow the rest of the conversation led me to a Blue 1992
Pontiac Sunbird. Thank God that he only left me just long enough to get the key
to it or else I would have bolted and ran.
He handed me the key and told me to take it for a drive and
see what I thought. Again in my mind, I was screaming, “WHAT I THINK ABOUT IT?!!
I MUST BE CRAZIER THAN I THOUGHT TO BE DOING THIS!!”
But again, I got in the car and found myself driving down
the street wondering when the man with the padded jacket would be zipping me
up. I remember willing myself not to cry the whole time. To keep what little
sanity I had left and just take the car back, thank him, and leave as soon as I
could.
When he asked me what I thought, again I had a laundry list
of thoughts that should have come spewing out of my mouth. “What I think is that
my credit score is zero, I have nothing but a car that is a wreck not worth the
dollars’ worth of gas I put in it. My life can't afford this car and why would
you or anyone even think to give me a car?” But once again, those words didn’t
come out. Instead, he led me into his office, and I sat down like a bag of rocks.
I’d been through this humiliation many times before. Trying
to get a small loan from loan officers who lean back in their chairs, tapping a
pencil against the desk and finally telling me that they are sorry, but they
can’t or won’t loan me a dime. Getting up and slinking out of the bank once
again seeing what you already feel about yourself—you are nothing and never
will be worthy of anyone ever giving or doing anything for you.
As he tapped on his calculator at this point I was sinking
even further beneath the waves of total humiliation and despair. Why was I
doing this to myself? WHY? Hadn’t I suffered enough already?
His next question must have shocked me back to the moment
when He asked me what year my current car was. It’s a wonder I could remember.
The conversation went on and when he reached for his phone I knew that the final
knife was about to be thrust into my heart. He was calling to check on my
credit. Why I didn’t burst into flames at that moment or fill his office with insane
laughter had to only be the Holy Spirit lovingly controlling me.
This is what happened next. He asked the secretary to come
in, he asked me for my keys, he asked me if I had anything in my car that I
needed to get out, and finally told the secretary to tell the mechanic in the
back to get the 1992 Pontiac detailed for Miss Todd.
I thought, “What is this man doing? Has he gone nuts? Doesn’t
he know who I am?” I’ll spare you any further anticipation. Within the next ten
minutes, I had signed my name, we had exchanged keys, he walked me outside,
shook my hand, and thanked ME for doing business WITH him!
God had gotten me off the couch and now he had seated me in
a new car and helped me drive it off the lot. I must have come to my senses by
then because I kept looking in the rearview mirror thinking that at any moment the
salesman would realize what he had done and was sending the police after me.
When I pulled back into my mother’s yard and shut the car
off. I heard the Holy Spirit. “Susan, I had already told that man to give my
child a car.”
Now you might have read this lengthy posting and I truly
hope you have. This happened to me. Every word of it is true. I lived through
this. I experienced this loving faithful act of God in my life. And this isn’t
the only time.
As unimaginable as it seems that God would already answer
our prayers even before we pray them is beyond the scope of understanding.
He loves us so much. He longed so much to care about his creation
that He came in human form in His Son Jesus.
It’s humbling when it finally hits us that God really is
Good. He really does care about every one of us. That’s means—YOU also.
I always want to leave you with a blessing. But my blessing
is nothing compared to how much God wants to bless you. But I’ll add mine
anyway.
Bless you.
