Acts 1:8 (NIV)
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
CONSIDER THIS
Today’s Holy Spirit Story comes from Richard. It is one we can all identify with and will appreciate. As I read it I was seized not only with Richard’s suspenseful craft of storytelling, but of his sensitivity to the personal care of the Holy Spirit to show him the love of God through a quite stressful situation. Here’s Richard in his own words and if you listen to the recording today you can hear it in his own voice.
God stepped into my life in a very personal way when he used a “senior” moment of forgetfulness and a perfect stranger to show me how real, deep, all-encompassing and, yes, personal, his affection is for me.
It was March 2018 and we were on a cross country trip (Indiana to Washington state) to gift our ten-year-old GMC Acadia to our granddaughter and her family. With two kids in car seats, it would be very helpful to her and her husband as she worked on finishing her nursing degree.
On the morning of our third day of travel, we hopped on I-25 just north of Denver heading toward Cheyenne, Wyoming. Observing the beautiful Rocky Mountains to our west, we exited the interstate to grab some video of the mountains. Back on the interstate, we continued toward Cheyenne, Wyoming. Once there, we turned west on I-80 towards Laramie. A late winter storm reduced driving speed to about 30 mph.
During this stressful drive, we received a distressing call from our daughter, a teacher back in Indiana. She said she had received a call from a man saying he had our passports. That was impossible. We had them with us for ID on our flight back to Indiana. Was this a hoax of some sort? We checked the car for the backpack which had our passports in it and it was gone. Slowly I came to the realization I must have taken the backpack from the car to get the camera out to take video of the mountains then got back into the car without the backpack.
Enter Mark, a retired chemist, who was making his weekly commute from Fort Collins, Colorado, to Wamsutter, Wyoming, where, in retirement, he drove a FedEx semi truck route. On his route, he noticed a backpack alongside the road as he was getting on I-25 and thought about picking it up. Because he was in a hurry to start his commute he drove on. He sensed the Holy Spirit prompting him to turn around and go back and get the backpack. He ignored the prompt and kept driving. The Lord continued to prompt him to go back and get the backpack. After driving about five more miles, he relented, turned around, and backtracked. He found the backpack still sitting there. In the backpack he found, among others things, our passports, my iPad, the title to the vehicle we were gifting to our daughter, and a book by Dwight Robertson titled Forged by Fire. Based on the book, he surmised we were believers. Looking through my passport, he found our daughter’s phone number under “next of kin,” and he called her. After a few attempts she answered.
After hearing from our daughter, we called Mark. Through dropped calls and weak signals in the mountains, we managed to communicate and set a meeting point—a truck stop at the Wamsutter exit on I-80. Mark greeted us with a wide smile on his face and a brotherly hug. He returned our valuables, and when I attempted to compensate him for his kindness and obeying the Lord’s prompting, he said, “Oh no, your thanks to me will be sharing this miracle story.” And the name of that truck stop? Drum roll please . . . Love’s. Mark even gave me a Love’s Truck Stop ball cap. As he handed it to me he said, “Double meaning!”
To demonstrate his affection for me, God orchestrated the following series of events: 1. My senior moment of forgetting the backpack. 2. Repeatedly prompting Mark, a perfect stranger (who is a Christian) to pick it up. 3. Mark’s obedience to the Holy Spirit’s prompting. 4. The backpack still being there on the side of the road. 5. My putting our daughter’s phone number in my passport. 6. Our daughter accepting a stranger’s call after first ignoring it because she didn’t recognize the caller. 7. Mark driving the same direction as us, linking us up through weak cell signals, and meeting with us to return our valuables.
While I was extremely grateful to recover numerous items that would have been difficult and time-consuming to replace, the greatest reward was experiencing the personal love, mercy, and affection I felt from God.
Wake up, sleeper! The grace and love of God under girds us on our best and our worst days. He makes up for our fails and misses and often surprises us with the most serendipitous series of events in ways so intimately orchestrated it could never be coincidental. And yes, it is always personal.
THE PRAYER
Father, thank you for Richard and for his faithfulness to remember and tell this story. Thank you for Mark and his faithfulness to turn that truck around in response to your prompting. And thank you for prompting Mark. With all the world to care for, you see such tiny situations as these and you move in them for us. Thank you for the way Richard revealed you, God, as the hero of it all. He gave Mark honor while reserving the glory for you. Let us learn from this storytelling craft. And cause us to remember such occasions from our own lives. Thank you for the way this encourages our faith. We pray in Jesus’s name, amen.
THE QUESTION
Does this remind you of any Holy Spirit stories of the sort you may have forgotten? Does it encourage you to be sensitive to and obedient to the promptings of the Holy Spirit?
THE HYMN
Today’s song is not in our hymnal but likely already inscribed on our hearts. It’s a chorus called “Open the Eyes of my Heart“; written in 2000 by Paul Baloche. If you have a few extra minutes today you can see a good live video of Paul leading the song here.
For the Awakening,
J.D. Walt
Sower-in-Chief
seedbed.com
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P.S. Holy Spirit Stories Welcome
I would love it if you would send a story of faith from your life we might use on a Saturday in the future. We will be glad to attach your name or a pseudonym or anonymity—it’s up to you. It can be a story of coming to faith, a story of transformation, a story of healing, deliverance, suffering and sufficient grace, family reconciliation, prodigal returns, answered prayer, and so forth. Word count of 500–800 words works well. We can’t guarantee publication, but assure you of our prayerful discernment. You can reply to this email with your story and it will come to me.
2 Responses
Personally, I can definitely identify with the senior moment part of this story. I have nothing as interesting as this story to share, but I sense God’s providential care throughout my life. God surely does look out for His children.
Glory!!! What a mighty God we serve!