How many of you know that you know that God knows what we want before we for ask it?
In addition, how many of you know that God has his own way of doing things and sometimes our plans are not his plans?
Also, how many of you know that when you give something to God, he is able to make sweet lemonade out of sour lemons?
I am reminded of the words written in Psalm 37:4-7A, which read:
“Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;”
I experienced this lesson in an exciting eye-opening fashion this past week in a most unlikely way.
To put this into context, for Christmas I received from my wonderful wife a gift of two tickets to the Purdue-Michigan State basketball game that was conducted this past Thursday night in West Lafayette, IN.
Arrangements were made for both my wife and I to be take off work on Friday so we would not have to take the three-hour drive home after the night ball game and could stay overnight with our daughter who lives in West Lafayette.
I was so looking forward to going to the game and to top off the experience Purdue officials were going to honor one of the greatest players to ever suit up as a basketball Boilermaker, Glen “Big Dog” Robinson that night. Robinson was going to be at that game. As a tribute, the school was offering a miniature 'bobble head' statute of Robinson to the first 3,000 fans who entered Mackey Arena that night.
Now “Big Dog” is one of my favorite Purdue players and I thought it would be so cool to be able to arrive early enough to get one of the bobble heads.
If you're not a Purdue fan, I know you won't understand, but the Big Dog was a big deal during his playing days for the Boilermakers.
Nonetheless. as the game date approached I was comfortable in knowing that both my wife and I would not be able to leave Greene County earlier enough to arrive at the game much before 6-6:30 p.m. – which was probably not going to be earlier enough to get one of the bobble-heads.
The story of going to get to go to the basketball game got complicated about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday morning.
I was scheduled to be off work to go to a doctor's appointment in Bloomington, so my normal time for going to work was much later than normal.
I left the house just a few minutes before my wife in order to scrap some of the ice off of her van windows.
I was chipping away at the ice when I saw my wife coming towards me with a couple of things in her hands. All of a sudden, almost like it was in slow motion, I saw her fall.
She fell to the frozen, ice-covered ground hard.
I knew she was hurt.
After she laid there for a few minutes, so she could catch her breath and regain some sense of if she was really hurt bad. Her right ankle had been bent back under her body in a direction in which God did not create it. She had a badly sprained ankle – with a lot of pain coming from the backside of leg.
I was able to get her into the house.
Thank the Lord her leg, her ankle or her hip wasn't broken.
As the next couple of days went on she was in a lot of pain and Wednesday night came and we determined that a trip to the basketball game would not be a wise thing to do. So I made a call to a friend, offering him the tickets to the game.
He wasn't able to go. Three more calls were made on Thursday morning to other individuals offering the tickets to them.
None of them could use the tickets.
I really wanted someone to be able to use the tickets.
Finally, I placed a post on Facebook offering the tickets to anyone who wanted to use them at no cost...just come and pick them up.
Within 10 minutes, a young woman from Jasonville posted that she would like them, if I hadn't already found someone to take them.
I told her if she came to my newspaper office in Linton, the tickets were hers.
She came about 30 minutes later and said she was delighted to get them because she wanted to take her young son, who I would estimate to be around 10, to the game.
I felt good about giving the tickets to someone who truly wanted to go to the game.
As I was driving home after work, the tickets came to mind and I kind of really wished for a moment that that I had been able to go to the game. It was a selfish thought, but that tiny little bobble head was really something I desired. I really wanted it to place on a shelf of Purdue memorabilia that I have at my house.
That night, my wife and I watched the game on television and were relieved that because of heavy winds and stormy conditions outdoors, that we didn't have to make the trip to the game.
How many of you know that God was still in control of the situation?
The next I was at my office, and the woman who works the front counter came walking in and handed me an envelope and a boxed up bobble-head of Glenn Robinson from the game the night before.
The card in the envelope read: “Thank you for help making memories for my son. It was a great time.”'
Wow, I was so touched and humbled that God was able to turn a really bad situation into a blessing for some other folks. In addition, I had the bobble head that I had desired.
The small material token from the basketball game will be something that I treasure, but the lesson behind that bobble head will be something I won't forget.
Be blessed.
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