Many years ago, August 4, 1984, to be exact; God called Toni and I to Youth With A Mission (YWAM). We needed $4,500.00 tuition for the Discipleship Training School and traveling money from California to the city of Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, some 3,500 mile distance.
We embarked on our cross-country journey with our two small children, Josh and Jordan. Toni and I had only $300.00 cash, and a gas and oil guzzling, 1973 Chevy station wagon. Needless to say, we were over $5,000.00 short. Yet, we truly believed that God would provide.
On our way to Canada, and after driving all night, the following morning, an 18-wheeler hit our car clocked by a Nevada State Trooper doing 90 miles per hour. The truck burst into flames on impact, skidding 600 feet before it exploded, catapulting debris 100 feet in the air! The truck driver jumped out safely, seconds before the explosion onto the center medium. Later, the State Trooper told us that the truck driver had dosed off, which was why he collided into our car. Miraculously, none of us were seriously hurt, even though our Chevy station wagon was totaled. Our trip to Canada appeared to be cut short.
I put my family up in a Motel 6 in Elko Nevada, using part of the $300.00 we had started out with to cover the hotel expense. Within 24 hours, a knock on our hotel room door. It was an insurance adjuster, representing the trucking company responsible for the accident.
The adjuster wrote Toni and I a check for $25,000.00. Way more than enough for our YWAM tuition and travel expense. We then took a bus ride to the airport in Salt Lake, Utah. While staying at another hotel, It was the next morning that God took me to a passage of Scripture:
“Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Since you have forgotten me and turned your back on me, you must bear the consequences…’ — Ezekiel 23:35
This verse popped up three times within 24 hours. It took me a while, but I understood what God was saying because we had received such a large sum of money that our faith and trust shifted from God to the money. In other words, we put our trust in the gift and not the Giver.
Later that morning, I lost my wallet with all the money in it! That Ezekiel verse kept echoing in my mind. Fortunately, I had kept part of the $25,000 settlement in the form of a certified check for $4,500.00, the rest in cash. But the certified check was also in my wallet.
You see, it is so easy and subtle to shift our trust and focus in God to other things. Because God loves us and that he’s a good and faithful Father, he won’t leave us in our sins. He corrects every son and daughter he loves.
Two weeks after we had arrived in Canada, the Salt Lake Police Department in Utah sent me a letter, asking me to call or write back and describe the wallet’s contents. I want you to know that I didn’t have time to file a lost wallet report, and nothing in my wallet could’ve led the police to our temporary stop in Quebec. It was an absolute miracle that the Salt Lake Police Department found Toni and I while staying on a farm in Quebec, Canada! I still, to this day, do not know how they found us.
Everything was still there in my wallet, except the $20,500.00 cash. Fortunately for us, the Canadian exchange rate in 1984 was 130%. Turning that certified check from $4,500.00 to $5,850.00! Because we had repented and adjusted our hearts, God gave us back just enough. As a matter of fact, because of God’s faithfulness, we were the only students who paid the required tuition in a lump sum!
I believe what we’re all going through as a nation is that God won’t leave us in our sins, and as a faithful and good father, he’s chastising America. He remembers our commitment as his people and as his nation to follow in His precepts and laws. After all, our country is founded on His principles.
In reality, we’ve all chosen to worship America and all its bounty, rather than the God of Heaven, Earth’s only Redeemer.
“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” — Psalms 11:3.
Unfortunately, the 21st-century Church has been too preoccupied with leaving the world. If the Church would’ve been occupied with the Kingdom of God, as an occupying force for good, we would not be this far down the river! Perhaps the “foundations” could’ve been repaired. I believe our nation’s fondations can be restored, as I hope and believe you do, too.
Our task is to occupy until He comes back—to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to all the world for a witness. Not hasten the day of destruction because of our misguided disengagement and our pre-tribulation, premilienial exfiltration focus.
We need to individually and corporately acknowledge our sins and turn away from them. We need to shift our trust and dependence on America and on our government and place our faith and trust back to God.
If we do this as a nation, I sincerely believe that God will restore America. Only God can make America great again.
It is better to have God and just enough than to have more than enough and no God.
It’s really not about making America Great Again it’s about making God Great In America Again!
Call To Courage 