The Sweetness that is the Lord!

I just wanted to share with you a story about the Sweetness that is the Lord! It’s pretty detailed, only because it has to be to show you how the Lord carefully weaves situations together in his perfect timing. Here it goes...

As I was leaving work and walking to my car on Monday afternoon, I noticed that I had a flat tire. My friend Bonnie came to pick me up so we could work out and we decided to come back later that evening to deal with it. We got back to the office around 7:30 pm and apparently looked a little out of our element in our gym clothes. Some guys from work were coming back late from a job site and asked if we needed help. I accepted their offer and put everything from my trunk into the back seat so they could get to my spare tire. They put my spare on in about 10 minutes and we were off. I decided that I would take my car to Discount Tire the next morning to see if they could patch the hole in my tire.

That night, I was talking to God and just confessing the bitterness I had in my heart because of a certain situation. I’ve been really upset for the past 2 weeks or so and I just couldn’t give it over to the Lord. As I was praying, I decided to open up my bible in hopes of finding a verse that I could write on my dry erase board at work to remind me to give up my bitterness and pride. I opened up to Proverbs and kept coming across verses like these: “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Come back later; I’ll give it tomorrow’ – when you now have it with you… He who despises his neighbor sins, but blessed is he who is kind to the needy… He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God… He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done…” So for some reason, verses like this kept sticking out to me. So I thought, okay, whatever, I’m going to look at this devotional book that my mom gave me because this is not what I'm looking for right now. My sweet mom gave my sisters and me a Beth Moore daily devotional book for Christmas and I honestly hardly ever read it – no offense to my mom, I just don’t think to read it each day. Anyways, I opened the book up to June 1 and read the following words… “O Lord, help me not be afraid to speak to You what's on my heart. Your Word says You know my thoughts and my actions, and You know what I'm going to say before a word forms on my tongue (Ps. 139:1-4). You will never be offended when I pour out the earnest despair and bitterness that wells in my heart. You desire for me to cry out in my agony, and You can take my feelings of anger, dismay, and confusion. In pouring my heart out to You, I rid myself of soul-cancerous bitterness. I also make room for You to pour in Your healing.” O…M…G… So I turned off the light and continued to pray “God, I’m not really sure why those verses in Proverbs stuck out to me, but I pray that you would provide me with opportunities to put my pride to the side and help the needy and serve the poor. Please take this bitterness out of my heart… I really don’t like being a jerk. Fill my heart with more of you.”

I woke up early (for me anyway) the next morning to head up to Discount Tire. They don’t open until 8:00 am so I went ahead and made a sandwich in hopes that I could get to work by 9:00 am, work through lunch, and leave at 5:00 pm. As I was walking out to my car it was thundering and lightning like crazy, but not raining yet. All of the stuff from my trunk was covering up an umbrella that I knew I had back there somewhere. Since I wasn’t sure where it was and I didn’t want to have to dig around to find it later, I just decided to go back inside to grab another one. Right as I got back in my car, the rain started pouring down. So I’m driving down a busy street and I see a grandmother and her grandson walking down the street, in the pouring rain, with no umbrella. The Holy Spirit showed up and said, “Give them your umbrella.” I thought, “Okay… yeah… sure…okay…I can do that…” So I turned around and pulled up next to them and said, “Here you go. Here is an umbrella.” She responded, “Thank you so much! God bless you! What is your name?” As the rain is pouring in my car, I tell her my name. “Brittany, thank you so much. We were running a little late this morning and I forgot my umbrella. I am going to be praying for you! Thank you so much!” I smile and say, “It’s not a problem, really. Have a good day!” As I drove off, I noticed that my fuel light was on. I hate going to get my car worked on when I’m low on fuel because I always get a lecture on how that’s not good for your car. So I pulled into the gas station. As I was getting out of my car I thought, “Give them a ride.” I put everything from my back seat into a large cooler (it was in my trunk) and pushed it to the side. As I was pulling out of the gas station, I looked their way and noticed that they were waiting at the bus stop, which is not covered, and someone else had joined them. I had an audible conversation with myself that went something like this: “Oh, they are waiting for the bus, it’s okay, you don’t have to give them a ride.” As I said that, three cars drove past and splashed water all over them! “Brittany, the umbrella isn’t helping, go get them!” “No, it’s fine, I’m sure the bus will be here soon.” “Brittany, just go get them! Do it!” Somewhat hesitant, I pulled up next to them, rolled down my window and said, “I can give y’all a ride wherever you’re going. Get in.” They responded, “Are you sure? Only if you have time. Do you have time?” “Yeah, yeah, I have time. Get in.” So they got in and the grandma said, “Brittany, do you always do this?” I said, “No, never!” She said, “You don’t always pick up strangers?” I said, “No, I promise. I’ve never done anything like this before.” Well, to make this extremely long story a little bit shorter, I was in the car with the grandma (I forgot her name), her daughter, Andrea, and her son who was autistic, Andrew, for about 20 minutes. The whole time we were in the car, we talked about the Lord and how good He was. It was awesome! Because they always take the bus, they weren’t sure how to get to their destination. So I ended up dropping them off at the park and ride. By this time it had stopped raining and was just drizzling. I told them it was nice meeting them and talking to them and drove off. I got to work at 9:00 am and just felt refreshed. I really don’t know how else to explain it. My heart was joyful again and the bitterness was gone. I was filled with the Holy Spirit once again. The Lord opened my eyes to help me see that I was getting caught up in the things of this world. He reminded me that I have a greater purpose and that He’s the one I serve each day at work. Not my co-workers, not my supervisor, but Him. I serve the Lord in everything that I do and that shouldn’t be a task surrounded by bitterness, but rather with joy! Thinking about all of the tiny details that went in to creating my morning, just blew me away! To think that I had specifically prayed for an opportunity to serve and provide for the needy and that I asked the Lord to take the bitterness out of my heart and HE DID IT, was just awesome. Sometimes I forget that I have a relationship with the God of the freakin' universe. The God who set this whole thing in motion and should have more important things to do, loves me and continues to pursue me even when I'm a brat. He answered my prayer and met with me that morning. He filled me with the Holy Spirit. Nothing I did that morning was of my own effort and therefore I can’t boast in myself, but only in the Lord. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:8-10. Be encouraged. Know that God wants to talk with you and He wants to meet with you.