Praise God for the Little Things

Daughter #1 and I have now completed our three-day visit to Los Angeles.

In this short amount of time we managed to locate and purchase a wonderful used-car for my daughter to dirve and locate and sign a lease for an apartment where she can live when she returns at the end of the month to begin graduate school.

God made both possible, providing both when we had virtually run out of both ideas and time.

With the car, God brought us a salesman who happened to be a Christian immigrant from the Middle East. I mentioned that I had recently had the honor and privilege of meeting the world-wide spiritual head of his "denomination" in Hawaii. Tears immediately formed in his eyes, he asked me to pray for him and his family and promised to try and get us the car at no profit for hiself.

This he actually accomplished, with our purchase price ending up being nearly $1,300 under the sticker price and less than both wholesale and retail Kelly Blue Book listings....for a car that looked as though the previous owner had washed his hands every time before he drove it!

After the deal had been signed, I did pray with him. As my daughter got into her "new car" to leave, he leaned in the window and told her that if she ever needed anything while living in LA she should give him a call as, because of my faith, my ministry and my prayers, he would consider her as his own daughter!

What a witness to God's providence! And what a witness to my daughter regarding the Spirit who makes us one in Christ Jesus our Lord!

The apartment was a similar experience.

On the afternoon of our final day, we visited an apartment close by another one we had been disappointed in earlier. My daughter fell in love with it immediately. The Manager had moved in himself only four days earlier. It turned out that he had many family members in Hawaii. He and my daughter hit it off right away. He took her application and said that the management group would run a credit check this weekend and choose between applicants.

Soon after, we visited another apartment that was acceptable but not anywere near as attractive as the first. My daughter was essentially offered this apartment on the spot. What should she do? Take the sure thing? Or leave LA hoping to get the one she really wanted? She was told that the credit check would take ten to fifteen minutes. We drove away completely unsure what to do. We decided to phone the manager of the first apartment to explain the situation and see if he could expedite her application process in some way.

As my daughter picked up he cell phone to call him, the phone rang. We expected it to be the manager of the second apartment. Instead, it was the manager of the first apartment, offering her the lease. Apparently, he had been impressed with her, personally ran a quick credit check, phoned the management association and asked them to waive their review and allow him to offer it to her. They agreed and he had phoned to tell her!

Within seconds of the end of this call, she received two phone calls. I would tell you who phoned, but I will tell you that they were from the two people that would have been the first two people she would have immediately phoned to tell them the good news.

My daughter was shocked, stunned and overjoyed all at the same time. God had worked another "miracle" that was almost beyond comprehension. She had been told that it would take a minimum of two weeks to locate a decent, affordable apartment in Western LA.

To add to the aura of mystery, I then mentioned to her that I had, for some reason I could not even understand myself, only prayed one time for God to provide a particular apartment. That afternoon, as we were nearing the neighborhood of a new apartment listing, I had asked God that this particular apartment, which we had not yet seen, would be the one that God had chosen for my daughter.

After attempting to contact nearly 100 apartment listings and after personally visited more than 20 of them, this one apartment...the only one I had felt moved by God to pray for...was the one she wound up with.

In Hawaii we call this a "chicken skin" moment! Although I have experienced such things many, many times in my own life and ministry, it was something new for my daughter. I quoted to her my "life verse" from Proverbs, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways ackownledge him, and he will make straight your paths."

That, I told my daughter, was exactly what had happened with both the car and the apartment.

Without a moment's hesitation, she replied, "Yes, and I think it fits my 'life verse' from Philippians, too!" And then she quoted,

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Amen! I couldn't have put it better myself!