The picture above is supposed to catch your attention. It was my son's car, which he had been driving a little earlier. If you look at the News link about this accident at the end of this article, you will also see the damage that was done to the semi that hit his car, and both vehicles burning on one of the Yukon bridges of the Kilpatrick Turnpike. Fortunately, no one was hurt. This is the story of how God used a tragedy to answer our prayers in a way that we could never have imagined.
My son thought he bought a quality, high-mileage car, according to his research and the car’s history; but shortly after he owned it, he blew a water pump that did some serious damage to the engine. What my son did not know, though, is that this particular car is known to have water pump problems. He said if he had known this fact, he would have invested in that part immediately after his purchase. He needed a car to drive to work, but the repair need placed him upside down on his loan, and his savings was going to be exhausted by December 11th. The sympathetic parent in us wanted to help him, but the wiser voice inside told us to pray and allow him to personally experience God at work. At first, everything that happened seemed to make the situation more hopeless. He paid for two repair estimates and spent thousands for the major engine repair. Shortly after he drove out of the shop, the turbos started smoking, and the present mechanic estimated that it would cost thousands more to fix the problem. It couldn’t have been any worse.
Eventually my son decided to take the car to a mechanic, who had resolved a tough problem before. He didn’t think it was as serious and bartered the work for parts. No charge! God was beginning to answer all of our prayers, but it wasn’t over yet. My son wanted to sell the car because he had lost confidence, but we all wondered if we would be passing the problem on to someone else. This was an ethical dilemma. He desperately needed to sell the car for enough to pay the loan, but was it worth that much or not? He would just need to be honest, and trust God. Maybe someone would want it enough to assume the risks.
One day three people called about buying the car. The first potential buyer had cash in hand, was ready to buy, and wanted to take it on a test drive. While they were driving it on the turnpike, on one of the narrow bridges that had almost no shoulder, it suddenly went completely dead. There they were, with no power, no street lights, no car lights, and in 70 mph traffic. They moved the car to a safe place while they were waiting for my son’s wife to bring the car tools. They walked to the median due to the narrow bridge, and shortly after that a semi hit the car and both vehicles caught on fire. The semi driver had his wife with him, and they said they didn’t even see the car.
When the car died, it proved that it still had serious problems and should not have been sold to anyone else. Another answer from God about our ethical dilemma! The accident was tragic, because of where it was and how it happened, but there were no injuries and five lives were spared that day! The insurance paid off the car loan with some left over to put toward buying a new car and because the accident happened on November 29th, there was no need to make that next payment on December 11th. Another answered prayer. No option that we could have come up with ourselves would have produced those results. That’s why we call it an answer to our prayers.
In James 1:2-4, James talks about how we are to rejoice when we have all kinds of testings. He uses the Greek word dokimion, the word for sterling coinage. It means a process of testing a coin by purging it of its impurity, seeing if it is truly genuine. This is one reason why God may seem slow at answering our prayer requests sometimes. He is preparing all of us for heaven by trying to rid us of our impurities, as we lean on him with our trials. If we can accept this kind of testing in the way it is intended, then we will see how we can become a more patient person, a type of patience that produces an unswerving constancy. The Greek word here for patience is Hupomone, which sounds passive, but it goes beyond that. Hupomone is not just to bear things, but it is the ability to turn testings to greatness and to glory. James was personally seeing an example of this by noticing how the heathens were amazed at the martyrs singing, while they were dying. This kind of mature faith has an undercurrent of a joyous faith-like contentment, knowing that God will be glorified somehow in our situations. Are testings uncomfortable? Of course they are; however, we can rejoice in our trials, knowing from our past experiences with our Lord, that He will help us through our trials and He will be glorified in the end.
Emergency Crews Respond To Fiery Crash On NB Kilpatrick Turnpike - News9.com
http://m.news9.com/story.aspx?story=36957793&catId=112032