On Monday December 8th, my wife was waiting in the parking lot outside my office when she noticed that the temperature gauge for the engine was almost in the red zone. This was not good so she immediately turned the car off while she waited for me. When I got in the car, she told me what happened. As I started the car, the temperature shot up to well over half. Since we were at my work and had to get home and I have had a thermostat go in a car before, I decided to drive the car home and watch the engine temperature. By the grace of God, we arrived home without issue.

The next morning, we arranged with my brother to have my sister-in-law bring me to work after she got off from working overnight. On the other hand, my wife proceeded to take our car to a mechanic who checked the car out. We had prayed and hoped that the car would cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of about a hundred dollars as we had just put two hundred dollars in the car to get it to pass inspection. We would later discover that the estimate was about $1,300, which was well above the amount of money that we had available to us.

I was at work when Vicky called me with the news. She was in tears and to be honest I was at a loss for words coupled with the fact that I was in the middle of my office and unable to console her anyway. For a moment in time, I was having d?j? vu and I didn’t know what to do.

Allow me to explain. Almost exactly a year ago to the day, we had a Kia Optima that died in the middle of the road when my wife was returning home. She had James in the car when it died. She called me at work, but as it would happen at that moment in time there was no one would around who could bring me to her. She then called the church we were attending at the time and their basic attitude was good luck with that which was not helping our situation or the fact that Vicky was stranded in the middle of the road with a just about to turn five year old who did not understand why he had to stay in the car. Eventually a police office came by and helped to push the car off the road to a side street and then a tow truck came and towed the car to a dealer to get it looked at. Vicky was stuck having to walk home on a major road with James and lugging the car seat.

The car dealer discovered that the timing belt had snapped and took out a good portion of the engine with it and the repairs came to $3,000. Given what happened with the church and everything else, I honestly didn’t have the faith to turn to God for the answers. I didn’t rely on him or wait on him for what I was supposed to do and made a very bad decision on how to pay for the car. A decision that still haunts me today.

We received the car back and less than a month later; it was totaled in a car accident as my wife was driving home from picking up Katie, my oldest daughter. You could literally see the hands of God wrapped around the drivers and passengers seat as the car that hit them hit the front and destroyed the engine and then spun around and hit the rear section totally missing where they were sitting. The down side was that the man did not have insurance and when we went to file the claim, we discovered that we missed with all my medical issues that our insurance had been canceled.

God provided us a vehicle, the one that was now in the shop and estimated to be $1,300 in repairs and my mind was racing back to last year and what to do. I was saying a silent prayer to God that I couldn’t go back to that because I knew that was wrong, but that he HAD to come through somehow and some way.

Vicky called the church and Gayle, our wonderful church secretary, sent out and email for people to pray at the same time I was sending out an email to everyone I had emails for calling on them to pray for our needs. Gayle prayed with Vicky and helped to encourage her that God would come through somehow.

Mark and Dina are friends of ours from church whom God has begun to knit together. Last Saturday night, we had the opportunity to get to know them when we were invited to their Christmas party at which we had a great time. Dina replied to my email within fifteen minutes with the simple message to have Vicky call. The reason she wanted us to call was because they had a mechanic that they knew and trusted. The long story short is that we transferred the car from the one mechanic to the mechanic that they knew. He gave us a new quote. This quote was about $25 less, but included a bunch more work that needed to be done. This was both great and depressing news at the same time.

Maria and Mario are friends of ours from church who we have knit together with because we share many of the same difficulties as well as both of us having been selected by the Pastor to be Connection Group leaders. About thirty minutes after I sent out the email, I received an email from Maria for our phone number so that she could call and pray with Vicky. However, I was in a meeting and not able to get back to her right away. Since I was taking too long, she called the church and got our number and contacted Vicky and stood with her in prayer as well as encouraged her.

To add to this, a member from our church contacted us and told us that they could help us with the bill by loaning us $600 to be paid back as we were able. This was a tremendous blessing because it immediately showed me that God was moving and that God was taking care of this whole thing, which I should have known from the beginning because that is the kind of God he is and always has been. But you know, sometimes when you fall off of a horse, it is hard to get back on no matter how good the horse is. I just thank God that he is patient with us.

This is where God really gets awesome. I was at my desk at work rubbing my head because my blood pressure was up and my head was hurting and a man comes up to me that I have been working with for the last almost five years and asks how am I doing. I told him that I was not so good. He asked what was up. I told him that the car was busted and that I had hoped that it was be inexpensive, but that it was going to be a lot of money and then he did the most unexpected thing. He moved in real close and said, “Do you need some money?” I was shocked and was not sure what to say other then I didn’t know when I could pay him back and he told me not to worry about that. Now, this happened less than an hour after finding out that the estimate of the car was going to cost as much as it did. In the end, when I found out the actual price of the car the next day, I needed to borrow $600, and I went and asked for the money. This man, who is a sweet and wonderful man asked if that would be enough and then offered me a $1,000 to make sure that I had enough to get by to be paid back when I can.

So, let me break down what God did for us. I found out that the car was going to cost well more then I had and could even think about coming up with. My best hope was my next paycheck, which was ten days away and spoken for to pay rent and Christmas. When I found this out, I prayed and God did the following IN LESS THAN AN HOUR. Gayle encouraged my wife and sent an email having the church pray for our needs. Mark and Dina called with a much better mechanic that did much more that was needed for a total of $1,189. Maria called Vicky, my wife, and encouraged and prayed for her. A member of my church called and loaned us $600 towards the repairs. A man from my offered to loan me money towards the repairs. He turned out loaning us a $1,000. All of this because I trusted in God to supply my needs and He showed up through these people. I don’t know what your need is right now, but I can tell you without a doubt that if you put it in God’s hands, he will take care of it for you just like he did for me and continues to do for me.

God is so awesome. This weekend, we tried a new church and I will just tell you that I hate trying churches. Especially when you try churches that are good ones. Because bad churches are easy to spot for the most part, but good ones that are just not where God wants you to become a part are much harder to tell. So, I hate the process to trying churches and praying and trying to determine if this is the church for my family. If this is the church that God is calling us to make our new home. So, in a way I was dreading going to church this weekend and I hate that feeling as well.

In fact, the night before, I asked God that this be the church just because I hate having to look for a church. I know that is the not the right reason to ask that the church I was about to visit be the church that God wanted to be our home, but I just wanted the search to be over. I am sure that any of you Christians who have had to search for a new church know exactly what I am talking about. So, I asked God to make this church the church that was to be our home church and to confirm that for us. Of course, I did tell god that not my will but his will be done and if this was not the church to let that be known to me as well, but the majority of my hour of prayer time was making my request known to God.

Before I get into what the church service was all about, I had spent much of the week prior contacting my father in the faith, the man who lead me to Jesus who now pastor’s a church in Utah. He was at a conference, but was ever so gracious to find time to converse with me over email which is a real testament the love of God that is in his life because I sent him what amounted to about an eight page email just unloading about everything that had been going on and how I felt and what I was going through and how I need some advise and direction. He replied that night, in the middle of the night burning the midnight oil on my behalf (Lord continue to richly bless him) with some initial thoughts and a question that really got me thinking. The question was simple, “What is the main goal of a Christian?” I quickly fired off an email reply with some trite clich? response.

However, the question did not leave my mind. I spent the better part of the day thinking about the question over and over and about Jesus and God and the Scriptures. I knew that I knew an answer and to be honest I really didn’t want to get this wrong. That is not that I was too proud to admit that I could be or was wrong, just that I really didn’t want to get such a basic concept of Christianity incorrect. So, the question just kept going around and around in my head until I had come to what I believed was the answer and just had to fire off my response to my father in the faith. Here was my reply.

I believed that I was right, but I can not tell you how good it felt to have my father in the faith confirm it for me. With all that I had been through lately, there was a great sense of peace to know that at the core of everything I had not strayed from God or the truth. My father in the faith added that now I had to find a church that believed this and lived.

This brings me back to this past Sunday morning. We arrived at the church a little earlier then expected because I misjudged how close it was. That is not a bad thing, but there was a sense of perhaps we had arrived too early. So, we waited for about five minutes in the parking lot asking God to show us if this was to be our church home before going in. As we walked in, we were greeted by several people, which was nice. Then things began to change.

A man walked up to introduce himself; I wish I could remember his name, but there were just too many names to remember. As he did, another man said, watch out for him because he is from New York. Well, we quickly informed him that we were from New York and New Jersey and immediately struck up a conversation. There was something very home feeling almost brotherly that came from talking with this man.

Soon the service started and we stood up to sing. As we did, people were still coming up to introduce themselves to us. In addition to this, both my wife and I commented how even though there have been good churches that we have been in since we left New Jersey, we have not felt the power and flow of the Holy Spirit as strong as we did in this churches worship service. On this alone, we were strongly feeling that this might be our new church home.

Something that amazed me was that during that worship time, the pastor made a point of walking up to me and introducing himself and speaking with me and there was just something in his eyes that I knew was genuine. It was not out of obligation of being pastor, but just out of love that he walked over and spoke with me and I could feel it in his handshake and his speech and it make me feel good inside and in my spirit.

The service was great although the pastor mentioned several times that this was not a normal service. In fact, at one point he even turned to me and asked if there was anything else that I would need to know that God was calling me to know that this was a good church to be my new church home. I believe that God set this particular service up for our need so that we would know that this is our new church. And if all of this was not enough, God did one more thing.

At almost the end of the service, the pastor talked about a member of the church who was in need and how the family was in financial need because of medical issues the family was going through. He spoke about the fact that we as Christians should be focused on loving on another and that we should be known by our love. That Jesus told us to love and that was our “Goal” as a Christian to love. I was sold. Not that I needed more at this point, but that was the nail in the coffin for me and the final confirmation that I would need to tell me that this was the church that God is calling me to be at and I am very thankful to God for having this church there and calling us to it.

As a side note, as a parent, you want your kids to enjoy church. This is especially true when you have teenagers. The pastor mentioned that our oldest was a teenager and two amazing things happened. First, we discovered that God had us sitting in front of the youth group and second more then half of them came up and introduced themselves and invited my child out to youth. They made her feel so welcome that she not only wants to come back to the church but she is really looking forward to coming out to youth on Wednesday night.

God is so awesome and I am so thankful that he has led us to this church and I am looking forward to becoming part of this church as we move forward. I want to encourage you that if you are looking for a church or find yourself looking for a church in the future pray and keep searching because God will bring you to that perfect church where you will feel the love and presence of God flowing.

Well, I have had an interesting week. I have been officially kicked out of my first church. There was no meeting no discussion no asking me what happened, I was just tried, judged sentenced and executed and told not only to not come back but that I need to go and find Jesus. It is amazing what people will do and say when they are stuck on themselves and blinded by the enemy.

It did bother me a bunch to have this happen because those who know me know that I try really hard to be a good person. I follow Jesus with all my heart and everything I did for that church I did only to help and it hurts. It really hurts. But God is the healer of broken hearts. In my daily devotional, he has been taking me to verses that are helping me to see that he still loves me no matter what other say. Verse like Romans 8 where it says that he does not condemn me and that no one and nothing and take me out of God’s hand. And verse like John 15 where God says that whole purpose that Jesus came was to show the way to God and the way is love and that if you are Jesus’s disciple they will know it by your love. God is so awesome.

So, I am moving on. I would like to say that I am all over what happened, but I am walking it out. I just know that I am not walking it alone. God and my family and my friends are with me and I am very thankful for that.