In the early days of our church, my family stayed in a friend’s living room in Hillsboro most of the week and in an office located in a house in Gresham two days of the week. We were just ready to drive to Hillsboro, when we came to our vehicle in a church parking lot, and it wouldn’t start. I’m kinda the opposite of a mechanic, but I looked the engine over only to discover that I didn’t know what I was looking at. We were miles from any place that might be able to help us. We were good and stuck, and we had many miles before we could reach our beds.
Seeing my distress, my five year old son said, “Daddy, why don’t we pray for an angel to come and fix our car?” I said to myself that this was ridiculous and won’t help, but I wanted to be careful with my son’s faith, so I said, “Well, okay. I don’t know that God would send an angel to fix our car. But if you want to, you can pray for that.” “Oh I can’t,” he said, “You have to.” After a short debate, it was clear that my son was going to insist that I pray for something that was just not going to happen. I sighed and said, “Lord, if you want to, you can send an angel to fix our car. If it’s your will, please do it. Amen.”
We sat around for a bit while I considered what other options were available to us. Then, from the park next to the church came a man with a boy, and he approached us and asked if they could play in the playground next to the church. I said “Sure,” and my son looked at me meaningfully, as if to say, “This is the angel, daddy!” So I approached the man and said, “Um, I don’t suppose you know anything about cars, do you? Because our car won’t start, and we’re kind of stuck.”
The stranger said, “Sure, let’s take a look.” He opened the hood, checked the starter and a couple other items, messed around with some unknown mechanical things and in ten minutes he was able to get the car started.
As far as I’m concerned, God sent an angel to repair our car. And he sent a little angel with him so he could play in the church’s playground.
mark woodson
Happened again to me yesterday that my car wouldn’t start. The Holy Spirit stayed with me through Les Schwab, Astro Locksmith, and Sunny’s Automotive where I was reassured of what all was right with the car (it’s old) then what exactly needed to be the minimum repair to get it running. I had been praying for the proper sequence of brakes and locking it to start it for 3 years, with children praying, too. Finally had completely failed. No one asked for money until they had created rewiring in the shop – and then they discounted the time. There’s a time to listen and be weak and become grateful.