The Truck

The picture is the truck, a tumbleweed, Texas, and me.  I’m the one with the hat.

When I moved to Texas to work with Bearing Precious Seed El Paso, I noticed there were a lot of trucks on the road.  “Texas” and “truck” seemed to go together.  At the time, my 13 year-old son declared that “Every man should own a truck before he dies”.   He obviously wanted a truck, but I told him I wasn’t going to buy a truck to be cool, but I would buy one if it was needed in the ministry.  Well, the director of the ministry was moving up to Ohio for his health, and wanted me to buy his truck – the one he had used for years in the ministry.  So I bought it.   This is the one.  Now, this was a truck.  A 1979 Chevrolet four-door, full size, eight foot covered bed, steel cattle guard, lights all over, and a 6.2 diesel engine that purred like a mountain lion.  It had some dents and had been in a few scrapes… but it won all the scrapes.  That truck was the first vehicle I drove in Mexico.  It went on almost every Mexico trip during my ministry.  The Mexican people recognized it and would wave when we drove by.  I was driving with Hector in Juarez one time and I was in a hurry to get back and I went over a hill too fast.  There was a Mexican motorcycle policewoman with a radar gun and she stopped me.  She came up to the side of the truck, stepped back and looked at the truck.  Then she asked me, “Do you use this truck for God’s work?”  I replied, “Yes, ma’am!”  Then I’ll just give you a warning, and slow down!” She said.  Because of God’s grace, this missionary did not get what he deserved that day!

I have other great stories about the truck, and I’ll post them at a later time.  But I have to tell you the most incredible one.

 The miracle front-end

When I bought the truck, we were all excited, especially my son.  And of course, all was apparently well since I was able to own a truck before I died…. When you buy a different vehicle, you need to get the title changed and put it into your name.  We had paid for the truck and were driving down to the title office. 
At the time, I was having a good week.  In fact, I was having an exceptional week.  When you’re having a good week, it takes a lot to get you down.  Let me tell you how good a week I was having.  It was SO good that NOTHING could get me down.  And I mean NOTHING!  That’s what I call a good week!  Glory!
Now back to the truck.  While driving, the front right ball joint broke.  The ball joint is what connects the wheel to the axle.  So the wheel separated from the axle and it crammed into the inside of the front fender.  The axle dropped down to the street.  And at 55 MPH, nothing really good happens after that.  The bad news was, that type of accident can easily flip a vehicle.  Thank God it didn’t.  It just dug a big half-moon shaped scrape in the highway and brought the truck to the side of the road.  And. Of. Course.  We prayed and gave it to God.  What else would we do?  We were physically fine.  I called our ace mechanic Steve and he came and towed it back to BPS.  After two days, he came into my office with the repair information.  He said the whole front-end axle assembly needed to be replaced.  Even if we got used parts, we were talking at least $2000 in repairs.
I had bought that truck 3 days prior to this.  I had not even changed the title yet!  What do you think my reaction was?  What would yours be?  Especially if you didn’t have $2000 to repair it?  I was still immersed in that “good week” I was having.  We were in the middle of the mission trips!  Hundreds of Mexicans were coming to Christ, thousands of copies of God’s Word were handed out in Mexico (that will not return void), and the Americans on the trips were weeping as they saw with their own eyes God spectacularly answering prayer to keep Satan from stopping us!  Good grief!  I KNEW God could do ANYTHING and solve ANY problem!  He had been displaying that on the mission trips!
That’s why I answered our mechanic Steve (without hesitation), “I can’t WAIT to see how GOD is going to make a BLESSING out of THIS!”  I was pumped!  I clearly remember that moment and how excited I was!  My heart races when I think about it now!
So, you ask.  Did God make a blessing out of that “bad” situation?  When I was young, I would have used that old phrase, “This is gonna knock your socks off”.  So with that phrase in mind, hold on to your socks and listen to this!

The BPS ministry in El Paso was situated on 20 acres.  There were a number of buildings on it including my trailer home.  Across the street from my house was a small shed with some tools and auto parts around it.  Many times missionaries would stop in and work on their vehicles, and do their work by this shed.  We had a bus garage but that wasn’t always available.  Two days after he had talked to me our mechanic Steve was down by the shed.  He noticed something sticking up out of the sand.  On further investigation, he realized it was an axel assembly… a front end axel assembly.  He dug it out.  He cleaned it up.  So, for $40 in new seals, I got a whole new front-end for my truck that fit it PERFECTLY!!  Good night!  I can’t hardly go to the auto-parts store and come back with the right part – and here is a total front-end axel assembly, across the street from my house buried in the sand!  Glory to God!  Is He good or what!
Now you might want to know why anyone would take a perfectly good entire front-end out of their truck and leave it.  Well, two years prior, a missionary was changing his truck from a two-wheel drive to a four-wheel drive.  To do that you need to put in a different front-end to work with the four-wheel drive.  So he took out his front-end and left it there.  Not only was that front-end a perfect fit for my truck, but it was better than the one that was in there (which caused the ball-joint to break).

God’s Point – The Right Attitude

Obviously, God performed a miracle here.  It unquestionably was attitudethat turned this nightmare into an incredible blessing!  I want to point out that I didn’t use the word “unquestionably” here frivolously.  I have other God stories that I will be publishing soon that will talk about the right attitude.  God loves to show His power so we can see that He can even make a curse into a blessing!  Consider:  Why on earth would He make a blessing out of anything when you are screaming and complaining and even blaming Him? 
The world’s response to this would be “Why is this happening to me?”  Unfortunately, most Christian’s responses are “I’m a Christian, why is this happening to me?”  Why, you ask?  Being a Christian doesn’t mean you won’t have problems, but because you’re a Christian, you should have a different attitude toward the problems.  The Christian response should be, “I’m sure glad I can turn to God with this, because I know I can’t resolve it!”  If you believe God’s Word, then you know that He loves you as a bridegroom loves his bride – He loves you more than any parent loves their child! (Luke 11:11-13)  And He said He would and will take care of you.  Don’t you think He wants you to remember Him first in a problem situation rather than as your last resort? (Matt 6:33)  Don’t you think He wants to use His power to help?  But you don’t ask Him!  The problem is you can’t see how your particular ‘situation’ can be resolved, so you don’t ask God, because you can’t see how you can solve it (we need to turn it over to the Lord – because He is smarter than we are).  Glory to God, let’s remember that we have the Creator of the Universe on our side – do you realize what that means?  It means everything!
Think about this.  When “bad” things happen, why do we forget that God can do the impossible?  Why do we forget that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills?  If He can solve any problem, even the impossible, and money is no object to Him, WHY do we waste time considering our personal puny limits by complaining that we can’t fix it?   
If there are ten blessings and one problem, what gets the priority in your life?  If all you ever think about are the problems, you will become a continually negative person.  That should not be!!  Do you somehow imagine that makes God happy?  NO!  Do you imagine that makes Satan happy?  YES!!  
When problems come, complaining only makes you miserable to be around.  Just give the burden to God, and while you’re doing that, show some excitement and thankfulness that you have this incredible privilege to come to Him!  And not just a privilege but an honor!  That’s what He wants you to do!
God is a good God, and He does good things!!