Make it obvious, please!

Not long ago I did a sermon on one of my favorite passages in God’s Word, Proverbs 3:5-6 which says:
 “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 
In all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight.” 

In that message I talked about how we tend to ask the wrong questions when faced with a decision. Questions whose answers will ultimately result in us “leaning on our own understanding.” The one question we should be asking is this one:  “What does God want me to do here?”

Last weekend I drove to The Cities to help our son look for a vehicle. His current one has developed some major issues and is no longer reliable. He saw a small SUV advertised online about 40 miles from where he lives. It looked good in the pictures, had low miles and, most importantly, was one of those rare vehicles in America that has a stick shift. Hmmm. I wonder where he got the idea that he has to have a manual transmission? (Says the dad who habitually pushes his left foot through the floorboards whenever he has to drive his wife’s automatic!) ☺  

Anyway, “leaning on our own understanding,” it was likely that we would buy this vehicle. So, I prayed and asked God to show us what He wanted us to do:  “Lord, if this is not a car that'll be good, please make it obvious, because we are headed in the direction of buying it.”

So, we get to the dealership and here’s a list of what we find:

+ Every car on the lot is buried in snow, and the parking lot hasn’t been cleared -  e
    even though it was three whole days ago that it last snowed. Not a good start.
+ The dealer had to hitch a chain to the vehicle just to pull it out of the snow.
   It obviously hadn’t been driven since before the first snow of the season four                 months ago. A bad sign.
+ The window - an old crank type, not “power” as listed - was rolled down, and
    the driver’s seat full of snow. Hmmm.
+ The tires are bald - and one was totally flat. Definitely heading in the direction of          “obvious.”
+ The hood latch was so rusted that the dealer had to use a crow bar to get it open.          Getting close to “obvious” now.
+ The battery was so dead, the car wouldn’t stay running. Getting really close to “obvious.”
+ Out on the test drive, the shift lever kept popping out of 5th gear. Yep. Obvious!

I’ve prayed that prayer previously with similar results. Next week when I go back to help our son check out another car, I’ll be praying it again. The simple truth is that’s a good prayer to get into the habit of sending God’s way for any decision, because it’s not just when we’re looking for cars that we tend to “lean on our own understanding.”

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