Sometimes
Following, Means Waiting.
It seems I spent the first half of my
life running from the Lord and the second half waiting on the Lord. It was not that the Lord had changed what or
how he was doing things. It was that I
finally started to understand what he was doing and how he does things. If you follow him long enough you will find
you can take His Word to the bank. What
it says will happen, will happen. The verse
that you reap what you sow is so true.
As we live longer and look back over the course of our life we will see
all the mistakes we made coming back to us.
The times we mistreated people or did things wrong will become clear to
us as the same thing happens to us, our family or our children. It is not that it is unfair, it is what we
have sown too. We may think we got away
with it, but suddenly we see the same things, we did to others, happening to
our children or loved ones.
In another verse it says we are to put
our shoulder to the plow and never look back.
Once we become saved we are supposed to walk away from our former habits
and lifestyles. It may not be all at
once but we should be striving to walk closer to the Lord. We are to keep our eyes focused on him. There is something else we need to know about
plowing that may open our eyes a bit. The reason we are not to look back is
that our old habits may cause us to waiver as we go. When you plow you do not plow in a straight
line forever. Just like the seasons you
plow in circles and eventually come back to where you started. This is when we start to see the errors
of our ways. Most of us tend to use our past lives to show
how far we have come. It is not that we
are proud of our mistakes. It is just that we can see where we made mistakes as
we come around the course again. This
time maybe we can straighten some of the errors we made in the past. Once we are saved we need to pray for crop
failure on all the bad seed we sowed.
Then start planting new seed.
One of my major problems as I learned to
walk with the Lord was my desire to apply what I learned. When I learned one little thing I would take
off with a zeal thinking I had it all figured out. Then I would get carried away. When I finally looked around I would discover
the Lord made a turn several blocks back.
Guess who had missed all the points in between. My wife often told me I used the truth like a
club. She was right. Sometimes a little tack would have gone much
farther in getting my point across. The
person I was talking to usually already knew the truth. My goal was to show them the benefit of
walking in the light of that truth. Usually my past was the point that made the
connection. It was simple to show them
from my own experience why changing was to their advantage. The nice thing about that is that it can be
done with conviction. I could explain
the price of not walking in a straight line.
Even if I never looked back the past is still there. The neat part of it is that the Lord will
take the bad things in our lives and change them from a sin to a testimony.
The transition from being carried away with
zeal to waiting on the Lord did not happen overnight. In fact it took many
years. It was when I started seeing
answered prayers that took several years to come to full bloom that things
started to change in my life. It was a
transition from zeal, to planting my heals, and saying I am not moving till I
know the Lord is in it.
For me that transition began when I finally
decided to quit fighting God and surrender.
I learned to drive a truck in Vietnam, while running from God. Then when I left the Army I tried everything
in my power to open the door to drive and it would not open. I finished college, started a business, went
bankrupt and finally when I got to the bottom asked God to show me the way out
of the mess I had made of my life. As I
had no money I started by tithing my time in studying the Bible. I spent 2 1/2 hours a day studying His
Word. At first it was easy at first as I
was unemployed and could not find a job.
Finally I started going door to door looking for a job and finally got a
job at a moving company. They put me in
the warehouse doing inventory and repacking crates for storage or for
shipping. After a few months my boss asked
me if I could drive a truck as one of the driver's called in sick. One thing led to another and soon I was
driving full time for basically minimum wage.
Several months later the door opened to get an over the road trucking
job. Which I was sure was what I wanted.
The first job I got was for a union company
and I stayed there for three years. It
was a two hour drive one way every time I went to work. Then I would be gone two or three weeks at a
time. While the pay was better it was
not great. Finally a chance to get a job
for a company closer to home opened up.
This job lasted about a year and then I quit in frustration. A few years and a few jobs later I found
myself sitting in the unemployment office.
My interview went something like this, "I don't care what kind of
job you have as long as it is not a truck driving job." A month or so later the counselor called
me. "I found a job I think you
ought to at least check out."
Finally I gave in and went and checked it out. It was everything I told the counselor I
wanted. Home every other day and decent
pay. All the jobs I had taken over the
past five years or so paved the way to opening the door. The employer was a Vietnam Vet like myself
and we hit it off and I really did like the job. The job lasted almost five years. Then the day before Thanksgiving in 1993 I came
in from my usual run to Alabama. My boss
met me at my truck and gave me some bad news.
Don't bother to come in Monday as they were closing the doors. It was a shock, but we had kind of been
expecting it due to things that had happened in the last few months.
On the way home I had a talk with the
Lord. I thanked him for the job and told
him I was not taking another job till I knew his hand was in it. Thursday I gave a sincere Thanksgiving Day
prayer and asked the Lord to keep and guide me in all I did. Friday I went to the local junkyard to get
some parts for my daughter’s car. While
there I ran into one of my old bosses. I
had hauled produce for him after leaving my first over the road job. He asked what I was doing and I told him my
story. He said he would check around and
see if any of his friends needed a driver.
That night I got a call and a job offer that seemed too good to be
true. I turned it down. I told the caller I was going to wait and see
what "The Lord wanted me to do" Which probably made me sound like a
nut case to him. Well I got unemployment
for about five months and things were not looking good. Finally I said to the Lord. "I thought I heard you and I believe you
will provide a way, but I am not seeing it.
I think it may be time to go back to work."
Shortly after "Our Talk," a
situation arose that required me to take action. I lived on a dead end road and there was one
property past mine. It was being logged
off and the trucks coming to get loaded would fly by my driveway. Finally I went to ask the person in charge to
have his trucks slow down a little when passing my driveway for the safety of
my grandkids and pets. In the course of
our conversation I mentioned I was a truck driver and that I understood his need
to get things moved. He offered me a job
hauling logs and I told him I was not into that. I preferred an over the road job. He then offered me a job that exceeded my
wildest dreams. He said he would give me
a truck. That I could go where ever I
wanted and run it like I owned it. All I
had to do was call him on Fridays and tell him how much he owed me and where to
take the check.
Suddenly a light came on. This was the same offer I had been offered
the day after Thanksgiving. In the
course of our conversation I realized he was the same one who had called
me. Finally I figured if the Good Lord
bought him down here and put him virtually on my doorstep the Lord was
definitely in it. So I accepted the job
and it all went fine for about six months.
He was good to his word and did what he said he would to, but he did not
want to work on the truck and it was getting to where I did not trust it. He offered to buy me a brand new one and even
took me to the dealer. However, I
declined the offer and told him he did not want to do that. If the Lord moved me I would quit and do
something else and he would be left hanging.
Well about a month later I did quit, but not without much soul
searching.
Sitting in a truck stop in St. Paul, MN a
situation arose that made even me question my sanity. The four years or so that I spent tithing my
time to the Lord helped me to trust that God would give me direction. The question was, was I open to receive
it. While sitting in the truck stop that
day after my Bible reading I became convinced it was time for me to step out on
my own and get my own truck. I prayed
about the matter. Then I figured a way
to test the matter. I told God if he
wanted me to take this step he should arrange for me to go to the truck dealership
across the street. If it was his will he
would make it happen or open the door for it. Then I let the matter go. After finishing breakfast I called my boss
and asked where he wanted me to leave my truck so he could change the oil in
it. It was one of the maintenance things
he did not hesitate to do. Well to make
a long story short, he said he and his wife were going to be out of town over
the weekend and for me to get the oil changed out on the road. Something that had not happened in the six
months I had been working for him. After
I got off the phone I asked the waitress where you signed up to get your truck
serviced. At the fuel desk or the shops
out back of the truck stop. She informed
me the shops in the back were a private company and that the truck stop had no
garage. Most drivers got their work done
at the shop across the street. Yes at
the truck dealership. Then I saw
it. On the fence next to the gate was a
sign for an oil change special at just $79.95.
While I did not normally get it done I did know that normally the price
was between $109 and $129 dollars. So it
saved my boss money, supposedly.
After paying for breakfast I went to the
dealership's garage and signed up to get my oil changed. There was a 3 to 4 hour waiting list. While I did not want to wait the mechanic
informed me later in the day the line would be much longer. So I signed up. The waiting time was spent looking at
trucks. Finally I found a 1973 W900
Kenworth with a coffin sleeper, no air conditioning and no power steering. It was very Plain Jane as trucks go. After some time I spoke to a salesman and
told him I would like the truck and that all I had for a down payment was $1500
which was all I had in savings. The
salesman informed me that they did not usually finance trucks over five years
old. He said they usually sold trucks
like this one to farmers for cash. Then
he gave me an application and said to go ahead and fill it out. It would not hurt to try. So I did and basically forgot about it. He was sure it would not go through. After my bosses truck was ready I headed
home, but not before they had to do about a $400 repair job. They found one of the battery cables had
rubbed bare and was arcing on the frame rail near the fuel tank, which was a very
dangerous situation. I had occasionally been
smelling something like burning wiring.
Now I knew what was causing it.
Had I not gone to the shop I might not have made it home. I thanked the Lord for his intervention and
my boss cursed the Lord when he found out how much it cost him. The things that happened gave me peace with
what I had done. It was not the first,
nor the last time my life was saved by taking a matter to the Lord and doing
what I felt he moved me to do.
About three days later my wife called
me. She was highly irate. She said she had received a phone call. It had something to do with me buying a truck
and she wanted to know why she had never heard anything about it. I explained to her that the dealer had told
me it would not probably happen. Well it
did and I had seven days to get up to St. Paul and pickup my truck. That weekend I went home cleaned out my truck
and took it to my boss. He was not happy
with me over the lack of notice, but as I told him. When he hired me I warned him I might quit
without notice and I had.
I left out one small part. Before giving the down payment check to the
dealer I had taken it to my companie’s garage to get it checked out. They normally did not put on trucks over five
years old unless they inspected them first and made sure they were safe and
road worthy. The truck had passed. So I
hitch-hiked to St. Paul and picked up the truck. Went to my company office and waited for them
to overnight me permits and paperwork.
Then I got my first load. The
load went to Pueblo, CO and delivered the following Monday. When they gave me my cash advance for the
load that was the start of my trucking career as an owner/operator. That money was all the money I had to operate
on. For the next nine years that is how
I operated. What I had was the money in
my pocket so to speak. Yet I survived, till
I had a heart attack, which ended my career, but even in that there was a
blessing. You can read that in my
testimony which is in my 6/23/16 post titled, A Tale of Life and Death.
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