A couple of months back Marilyn and I went to a neighbor’s house to pick up a piece of furniture. Afterwards, she backed into the driveway to unload the furniture. Because we had a large pile of mulch in the driveway she had to back in behind my car. Normally it wouldn’t have mattered since, because of the COVID19 virus lockdown, I have been working from home. However, I was going in that day to deal with some equipment issues at a remote location.

After we unloaded the furniture, Marilyn went back out to move her car. What she found was that all the doors had locked (on their own), and the keys were laying in the floor board of the car.

Marilyn knew this was good “freak out fodder” for me in the past. However, I surprised her this time. I had been learning recently how not to stress out about things: how to trust in the Lord more; and that is a valuable lesson.

So, when she showed me the locked car with the keys clearly visible inside, I immediately started thinking about how to break in; but the Holy Spirit checked me and told me what to do. Recently we’ve been closer to the Lord, and we’ve been hearing from Him regularly. I realized that if I trusted in Him with this He would show us the way out. So I said to Marilyn, “Let’s go do the Bible and the Lord will show us what to do.”

By “doing” the Bible I meant our morning routine of reading a chapter of the Bible and then praying for the day. I read a chapter in the KJV and Marilyn reads the same chapter in the Amplified Bible.

After we prayed I was in a calmer state to think about what I could do. I could try to use a coat hanger to push the unlock button, I could hire a locksmith, I could search the internet for a solution. So, first I searched the internet and learned that Subarus are really hard for amateurs to break into safely, without the proper tools. Bummer. While I was mulling this over it came to me that AAA might offer this service as part of our plan.

I mentioned this to Marilyn who gave them a call. We were thrilled to find out they did this as part of our plan. You might be asking yourself why we didn’t use our spare key. We don’t have one. We bought the car used and they only had one set. I never bothered to get another.

AAA sent someone out in about 30 minutes. He was a friendly guy – an African American gentleman – and it took him about 5 minutes to get the door unlocked. However, more interesting than that was that Marilyn was able to have a great conversation with him: she talked about the Lord and listened to him talk about his family and how he was coping with the crisis. None of this would have happened if I had been fretting over opening that car myself and muttering and complaining the whole time.

I like it, this consulting the Lord and looking for His path out of trouble. I have to give credit to His leading us through friends to maintain a disciplined Bible reading and prayer time, to participate in local community Bible studies, and to join in an international prayer ministry online. Each discipline and each instance of fellowship with other believers makes us stronger in faith and more able to do His will.

Proverbs 3: 5-6 says: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.