💥 Wisdom from above

James 3

 

13 Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.

14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.

15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.

16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.

18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

 

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Comments by Joan Boney:

 

Through the years, God has taught me many things about wisdom from God and following God but this is an example of missing the direction from God and being rescued by God 3 1/2 years later. 

 

In 2020 ... My house in Texas sold.  God had shown me I could no longer live alone as I had been doing. And God arranged for me to move to Colorado and move into the home of Pam Padgett.  

 

Pam didn't want any money for my living there but I insisted that I would not live there without paying $500 a month to help with expenses.  After the house sold in 2020 I insisted on paying $1,000 a month which I continue to do. 

 

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In 2020, I was considering putting new seat covering on my 25 year old car when the Holy Spirit spoke these words to me in the form of a thought:  "Or you could just buy a new car."

 

That was shocking to me.  I had never considered doing this. 

 

I had just sold the house in Texas for $308,000.  Most of that money was in my bank account so I had ample money to pay cash for a new car.   I knew I would not be buying a house or building another house for God had made it clear to me that I could not live alone again.  So I wouldn't be using any of that money in the bank for housing.

 

That same night that the Holy Spirit spoke to me, God gave me a dream.  I bought a new car ... but I forgot to ask my dad which kind I should buy.

 

We ended up with a new 2019 Acura MDX-SUV, paying $58,000 cash for the car.

It was a nice car and very pretty we thought and there was plenty of room in the back for Pam's 2 big dogs.  Pam's current car at that time was Acura MDX-SUV.  She bought it because it drove well on snow and she was skiing then.

As we test drove the car that day we bought it, we were pulling out of the Acura lot and I heard a word from God: "You should drive a Mercedes."

 

The Mercedes dealer was exactly across from the Acura dealer and I saw the Big letters "MERCEDES" on the door of the dealer.

 

Pam was driving and when she turned right onto the side street, I became distracted somehow and never told her what God had told me.

 

We bought the Acura.  

 

Later I realized the Acura was rough riding. 

(I had broken 7 bones in my body prior to that and was then 83 years old and partially crippled.) 

 

Very soon I realized it was difficult for me to ride in the car we'd bought without physical pain. By 2023, it had gotten so bad that mostly I stayed home when Pam was going to grocery and shopping. 

 

When I did go out in the car, I would wonder what "that other car" rode like when we met a car.  (There was never peace!)

 

Finally I told Pam I felt we needed to change cars and focus on "air suspension".

 

One day Pam was getting into the SUV and realized she didn't even like driving that car we had bought 3 years earlier.

 

Pam checked internet to see which current cars have air suspension ... a few car's did have that. 

(That is what made the old Cadillacs and Lincolns ride so well in the 1960-70 period and they were much longer.)

 

We learned that the car had to be longer for them to use the air suspension.

 

We began test driving cars that currently had that.  But we were dismally disappointed in that which was available in 2023.  

 

At some point I recalled what God had told me in 2020:  You should buy a Mercedes.

 

We went to Mercedes and test drove an E-class but I told the salesman it wasn't much better than the car we had ... and the salesman said I was going to have to have an S class which started at $125,000.  (I was shocked.) 

 

 For many years, I had lived by the principal of God's yoke being easy and HIS burden being light and if something was very complex or overly expensive it was not God's will or wisdom to buy it or do it.

 

But we decided, while at the Mercedes dealer, to test drive the manager's S-class demo car.   

 

When I got in and sat down, even before the motor was started, I said, "Now this is a car!" 

 

Pam was driving.  Even before we got off the lot I knew this car with air-suspension was much more like the older cars that used to be made in USA. 

 

We took the demo car into the nearby Rocky Mountains.  On the many curves, I could tell Pam loved driving that car.

 

Pam had previously said, "I'd have to really love a car to pay this much money for a car."

 

On the way down from the mountain, Pam said:  "I really  love this car!"

 

The manager asked me if I would consider buying that car which was his own demo with 4,000 miles on it.

 

I said, "YES", immediately.  (I'd been taught by my dad never buy a used car but I figured the manager would have been careful with that car and he had driven it for about 6 months which should be long enough to get the "bugs" out if there were problems.)

I had no debt of any kind, and neither did Pam.  Even her house was fully paid for.

I asked God if I should pay that much for a car.  (Dealer lowered price to $117,000 which is still a lot.)

God brought to my mind 2 scriptures which I felt showed me I could pay that much for the car and would not need that money for future.

Psalm 84:11  For the LORD God is a sun and shield: the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will HE withhold from them that walk uprightly.

 

I Timothy 6:17 Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;

(You can't trust in your money that you have in your bank account.  Governments often devaluate money when there is a crisis.  Spain did that before WWII and Germany did that after WWII and the confederate bills were worthless in value after the Civil War.  And during the stock market crash in the late 1920's this happened in USA.  Even lately I've asked God what to do about the money in my savings account at the bank because I was concerned.  God didn't tell me to do anything but buy a Mercedes which I can ride in painlessly!)

 

We sold the Acura MDX-SUV for $30,000 to a car dealer, Lincoln.

 

That made the Mercedes S-Class cost $87,000.  A very good purchase and even reasonable when you price Lexus, Cadillacs and Lincolns today!

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We bought the Mercedes on November 6, 2023.  I've never had pain while riding in that car.  It has what Mercedes calls, "super air suspension".

And that car has brought many thanks from us to God!

 

Pam named the car, Anna Lesse (a German name which she found on Internet as often used in Germany for female babies), and we often tell her how much we love her when we get in and I frequently pat the dashboard as I tell her. I know she is not a living being ... but almost! You have to avoid saying the word, "Mercedes" for that will trigger the computer and she, by the built-in computer, will say, "How can I help you?"

***

In 2000, I knew at some point I would need to replace my older car. I was shocked when I test drove the cars available at that time ... and the prices were staggering ... as a child I recall us paying about $6,000 for a nice car that rode like a dream!  By 2000 the cars were about $22,000 and like pieces of junk to me.

 

So I began praying:  "God please have someone make a car for me."  

 

I had forgotten doing that.  When we bought the Mercedes, one of our church members said to me, "It's like that car was made for you."

 

I had forgotten that prayer until Barbara said that, then I remembered.

 

 ***

 Also I have to revise some of my thinking, for I had been saying the wisdom from God is pure, peaceable, easy to be intreated  (this is still true) ... But I was also saying if something is very complex or "overly expensive" it is unwise.

 

Now I would say, "If it is overly expensive," is is usually unwise.