Running Out of Gas Out Running God's Provisions
I remember my first days of ministry as a kid preacher. Actually, it was the summer before my senior year in high school. Brother Bob gave me a little Sunday School class of 3 junior boys and told me to grow it. I set out to win junior boys all over our town.
Soon we had ten boys in our class on Sunday morning, then twenty. In several months we had over thirty junior boys attending our Sunday School class every Sunday. But it took work.
I usually drove my little Corvair 100 miles or more each Saturday. I would start out early, visit my regular boys, and knock on doors to find more. Then I would go back on Sunday morning to pick them up. I would pack as many boys into my little car as it would hold without losing someone out the window or blowing a tire, drop them off at the front steps of the church, then go back for more, sometimes making three or four trips. I remember once seeing some of the deacons standing at the top of the steps and thought I saw them smiling big at me to cheer me on. No football player running for a touchdown in a packed out stadium ever had more fun.
But it was hard work. On Saturdays, often I would work until dark and rarely stop to eat. After working hard all day on one Saturday, I ran out of gas in my car on the way home. I got a little mad, not with myself, but with God. I sat there in the dark in my little stalled car fussing with God because I had run out of gas. I couldn't understand considering how hard I had worked.
"Why did you allow this to happen to me?" I asked God.
"Because you didn't take time to stop for gas," he answered.
I remember my first days of ministry as a kid preacher. Actually, it was the summer before my senior year in high school. Brother Bob gave me a little Sunday School class of 3 junior boys and told me to grow it. I set out to win junior boys all over our town.
Soon we had ten boys in our class on Sunday morning, then twenty. In several months we had over thirty junior boys attending our Sunday School class every Sunday. But it took work.
I usually drove my little Corvair 100 miles or more each Saturday. I would start out early, visit my regular boys, and knock on doors to find more. Then I would go back on Sunday morning to pick them up. I would pack as many boys into my little car as it would hold without losing someone out the window or blowing a tire, drop them off at the front steps of the church, then go back for more, sometimes making three or four trips. I remember once seeing some of the deacons standing at the top of the steps and thought I saw them smiling big at me to cheer me on. No football player running for a touchdown in a packed out stadium ever had more fun.
But it was hard work. On Saturdays, often I would work until dark and rarely stop to eat. After working hard all day on one Saturday, I ran out of gas in my car on the way home. I got a little mad, not with myself, but with God. I sat there in the dark in my little stalled car fussing with God because I had run out of gas. I couldn't understand considering how hard I had worked.
"Why did you allow this to happen to me?" I asked God.
"Because you didn't take time to stop for gas," he answered.
Don Loy Whisnant/Journey Notes 9E18
