This past Wednesday morning I had several things going in and out of my mind very quickly. As I got ready to come downstairs, I picked up a paper on which I had printed the daily scriptures. The first scripture kind of jumped off the page ...
Colossians 3:15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
As I thought about the peace of God ruling in my heart, I recalled the things that had been going through my mind and knew I hadn't gotten these settled with God. That's the only way to have the peace of God ruling in my heart.
I was also reminded of Philippians 4:6-7 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
So after getting the animals taken care of, I sat down and started going through the various things before God.
One thing was a problem with the garage door. It would close, but then open right back up. Sometimes it took 4 or 5 tries before it would stay shut. Frustrating! Tuesday afternoon I had called the company that took care of the garage door in the past and left a telephone message, but they hadn't called back. As I talked with God about this, I felt I should call another company. The company I called was able to send someone out that afternoon, much faster than I thought might be possible. The guy came and fixed the door around 2:30.
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Another problem had to do with when the deck was scheduled to be replaced. The guy told me a few weeks ago that they were scheduling into August, but that my deck is so small they might be able to do it sooner. Since it is almost August, I assumed my deck would just be on their regular schedule and sent an email a few days ago asking when they planned to start work. I also left a voice mail, but hadn't heard back. Thoughts were coming that maybe my job wasn't even on the schedule! As I talked with God about this, I was led to call Steve right then. I called him, and he answered the phone, saying he had just then taken a break from a job he was working on. He said my deck is scheduled to be started on August 12. This freed me from that concern.
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I was also concerned about talking with the realtor of the house in Texas, to let her know we had decided to have another realtor list the house in Lubbock. I asked God to please give me wisdom in what to say and to work this out so that we would be released from the contract without a lot of problems.
When I called the realtor, I reminded her that she has said more than once that she doesn't know why there has been so little interest in the house, and that we have decided to use another realtor who has some different ideas for marketing the house. Also, I reminded her that we would send her a check when the house sells to compensate her for the time she has spent on the house, as Joan has previously told her.
She sounded surprised that we were changing realtors and also defensive. She said she would have to talk with her broker about releasing us from the listing contract. A little later she called me with questions from the broker. After I answered those questions she said she would call me back again shortly.
I was starting to feel pulled down and kept praying, begging God to get this resolved.
Then before she called again (our third and final conversation), I was reminded of Isaiah 41:10
Fear thou not; for I am with thee:
be not dismayed; for I am thy God:
I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee;
yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of MY righteousness.
"be not dismayed; for I am thy God" especially stood out to me.
I began thinking about God being my God. God is completely in control of this entire situation, and HE cares for us. God created all things. Nothing is too hard for God.
As I thought on these things, I was strengthened by God ... the opposite of being dismayed and pulled down.
When the realtor called, she wanted to know how much we planned to send her when the house sells, and wanted an email stating this. She said after receiving the email, she would send the release form.
Although I know we would send her a check for $3000 and had no problem stating this in an email, I felt strongly led to tell Joan about this request. Of course, Joan had no problem putting in an email that we planned to send a check for $3000 to her when the house sells.
But before I could get the email written, Joan was led to send a $3000 check to the realtor immediately, not waiting for the house to sell. Joan wrote out the check right away and I handed it to the mail carrier.
I have no doubt sending this check immediately was wisdom from God in the matter. We are now totally free from this realtor and she is compensated and even has more than she would have expected!
I'm so thankful to God for working all of this out and for strengthening me. And I look forward with joy to working with the new realtor.
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One more problem I talked with God about Wednesday morning had to do with our TV satellite programming.
When we signed up with DirectTV, they had given us 3 months of premium channels for free. That 3 months ended this past Sunday. I called on Saturday to cancel HBO and agreed to begin paying for Showtime, Cinemax, and Starz. Although I received emails showing that we still have the three premium channels we want and were being charged for them, they were not activated on our system.
I called on Tuesday evening and was assured the problem had been fixed and that we would be able to get the channels in 2-3 hours, but this didn't happen.
As I discussed this problem with God Wednesday morning, I kept having the thought that we needed to cancel all of the premium channels and try to subscribe to the ones we want in a few days.
I called DirectTV again that evening and landed up speaking with 3 different men. No one understood what was causing the problem, although the first man said it appeared to be related to our wanting just some of the premium channels from the free promotion. One of the men seemed relieved that I wanted to cancel all the premium channels. Strangely, everything with our account was in such a state that even cancelling all the premium channels caused errors in their system! But later I received a call and an email which shows that the premium channels have been removed.
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I'm so thankful to God for reminding me to review with HIM the various things that were quickly popping in and out of my mind, and then helping me and strengthening me in how to deal with each one.
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