When Did You Need God the Most?
When in your life did you need God the most?
Here's my story:
The time I needed God the most is when my business was crashing down on top of me. After being burned by over $40,000 from a few different customers, it led to a spiral of bills to be paid, taxes that couldn't be paid, collection calls, and at a time where the value of our inventory decreased 30%. I remember the intersection I was driving through when I yelled in my car, "God, what is the deal!?" Immediately a thought crossed in my mind saying, "Are you willing to let go of the business for Me?" Immediately I shot back (audibly), "am I willing to let go of the business for You? I don't even know if that's you saying that or if it's my own thought!"
In the 48 hours that followed, I realized the thought that came in my head was not asking in 3rd person. If it were my thought, I would have asked, "Am I willing to let go of the business for God?"... He asked, are you willing to let go of the business for Me. It hit me.
God needed to dump my boat, my business, my warped identity I had about myself in the business, and me holding onto the controls. It wasn't an easy road for the next few years... they were some of the hardest financially, toughest in our marriage, and I felt like I had to be completely broken to be built back up again.
While I said I loved God, the reality is my business had a lot more mind space, time, money, and energy going into it than anything I was doing for my relationship with Christ. God knew He had a bigger purpose in my life but had to break me, bust the business, and put my marriage through a refining fire before I could see a view of His bigger picture.
He is faithful, Thank you Jesus for not leaving me in my busy, stressed out, off purpose, and self centered life I was living.
"We need God the most in the detours of our lives... God is in the detour..."- Mark Beeson
That's my story of when I needed God the most, how about you? Feel free to leave a comment here with your story to encourage others...
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June 4th, 2011 - 14:48
Wow! The stories I hear are so amazing! I think we all have one that we remember so clear, the moment we were yanked into God’s reality for us……
Myself? It was in Martin’s parking lot at Cobblestone Crossing in January, 2010.
Long story short: a chance trip to the ER, doctors saw “something” on a ct scan. I knew. Deep inside of my 30 + year smoking body, I knew it was lung cancer. Never a doubt. Oh yeah, the fear and “please not me God” thoughts that took me over were there, but I just knew I wouldn’t get that lucky.
For the next 6 weeks, until a surgeon scheduled me for the removal of the thing/spot/smudge, I cried, screamed in the privacy of my car, bawled with very ugly noises, threw myself to the ground in prayer and learned what really was “wailing and knashing of teeth.” But I refused to let Jesus love me. See, I had wasted my life, I knew it, I had not been “good” enough, had not done the things that the Catholic I had been raised up to be should have known to do.
My middle child, my wonderful daughter Rose, attended GCC. That January, I asked her if I could go to church with her. She was thrilled that I wanted to. It was scary, that first few times. Entering that church with all of those good and holy and righteous people. Then there was me. The smoker, the wine indulger, the person who mostly thought about only herself. I had no business being in God’s house.
But something spoke to my heart at GCC. Something got through to me that never had reached down that deep inside me in my entire life. I know Jesus reached out to me.
Now the tears weren’t for me as much as for the others in my life I had let down. See, as far as I knew, lung cancer meant game over, I was going to die. I cried and screamed in anguish when I was alone, because I knew I had blown it, I knew I had let precious time go by, I knew I hadn’t listened to God for so long that there was no way he could want me now.
Shows what I knew, huh?
In that parking lot on that drizzly, cold night I was listening to a CD that Rosy had made me when she was in college. She was singing, Jesus, Lover of My Soul, to just a guitar played by a friend. My thoughts were tumbling around my head, tentative, wondering thoughts and ideas: could I? would He? if I did, would I be new? start again? alive again? would I live? born again?……………
I cried some more in that car and fell into Jesus’ arms. He didn’t let me go. He still hasn’t.
I had a surgical biopsy on February 9. It was cancer, a lobe of my lung was removed. Period. End of that story, but not the end of my life!
God did not give me cancer. Me and the Phillips-Morris company managed that just fine on our own. But he took an earthly evil and used it for good, that I know! I am a different person. That person prior to that fateful trip to the ER is no longer here. I am much more patient, much more tolerant and much more at peace. I have no desires to live the life I did before and it’s all because of him! I am here more for others than myself. I am a new creation, thank you Jesus!
Oh, yes, when I needed Him the most, He held me close………and I’ll never let Him go either!
June 10th, 2011 - 07:55
Wow. Thanks for putting yourself out there and sharing like that!