The story of a quarter.
We found this beat-up quarter as soon as we got out of our immobilized car and started to walk to the gas station. I bent over to pick it up saying, “Look what I found!” Dianna looked and said, “Don’t tell me it is a quarter!”
“Yep" I replied, "dirty and black just like the other one!”
We both laughed … and remembered.
Do you recall how often God tells us to remember what He has done? That is for a purpose; with memory comes assurance.
The story of the quarter, the first one, is that Dianna and I had just married. We had all our plans in place. I had two good jobs and we were living in an apartment in Campbellsville. Our plans for the future were in place. She was going to complete college and I would work to provide for her and to put her through that last year. I had already applied to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Once she finished school we would move. Until then, I would work and preach every opportunity I had.
That’s when God showed us his plans. Without even applying, I was offered the Presidential Preaching Scholarship at Southern Seminary in Louisville (I think it was my former pastor in Michigan who pulled some strings). I was called to New Hope Baptist Church as pastor. It was a full-time pastorate that came with an incredible four-bedroom house. The church told me, “We want you to be our pastor, but our calling as a church is to put pastors through seminary. So we want you to go to seminary full time.”
It seemed that God was working in ways that we couldn’t fathom. We would laugh and say, “Sometimes God opens a door and sometimes he knocks down walls!”
One night driving back from Louisville, our car broke down on I-65. It was night. The road was in construction. New black pavement was beneath our feet … literally, “pitch black”. This is was in the “dark ages” … long before the invention of cell phones. So we got out and walked toward an exit. We didn’t even had a quarter to make a phone call but figured we would ask the gas station attendant for a loan.
That’s when we found it. The first quarter. At night. No moon. Pitch black. New blacktop road surface. A black quarter, worn with dirt and grim. Just laying there. And I saw it. I found it. Just when we needed it. (And we did need it because the gas station was closed and the pay phone was outside).
We called her Dad who came to our rescue.
Funny how a simple quarter can remind you that God is interested in the details of your life and how He is really there … all the time … and how He is really Good … all the time.
Sometimes he opens doors. Sometimes he knocks down walls. Sometimes he gives you a dirty quarter ... just to remind you ... that He is in charge ... all the time.
He still is, you know.
