Bio summary

"Set your heart on the things of Heaven"

3/8/08

As I was driving home from work, I was listening to the Christian radio and heard a singer sing something like, "you can take away everything but you cannot take away my belief". I thought, "We can lose our belief through brain injury and other memory problems, but no one can steal the Holy Spirit". When I got home my husband told me that our uninsured car had been stolen. It had not been valuable enough to insure, but it was a useful old thing as many places we need to go to are not within walking distance from our home. Some busses run but not always when they are needed. I sent an email out letting friends and church members know and prayed that God would return it to us, but not as a burnt out wreck. I remembered the sermon from the previous week that included the verse about not storing up treasure on earth where thieves can break in and steal it, and the bible verse I had read about the king building walls to protect the city. Peter's work contract had been abruptly cancelled and now his car was taken. I wondered what God was saying to us. Was it time to sell up and retire early or was it just a reminder to travel light on earth? On the Saturday I decided to drive a different route into the city. That evening I felt sad that we so often get caught up valuing everything we chase so that we can earn money to provide well for ourselves now and in the future and we neglect things that have eternal consequences.

Why do we choose the things of this world
when the Kingdom of God is so great an adventure
and life on earth is so temporal?

Why do we value the things of this world
when the world to come
holds treasures beyond our dreamings?

Find the ancient path
and follow The Way
to its source
Its course
is worth more
and its end is fullness.
"Go forth and satisfy the earth
with the fullness you receive on your journey"

At church the following day, a friend told us that they had seen a car that looked like ours on the side of the road that I had decided to travel the day before, so we went to have a look. It was ours! I had driven right past it the day before. It was on the road that had come into my mind to go down for a change, but I had not seen it because of the trees in the middle of the road. Peter said that it had also come into his mind to travel that road the day before, but I had needed the remaining car to go into the city. It was just around the corner from the police station so we went on to let them know we had found it. They sent a forensic team out to collect prints, including a shoe print from the bonnet, and DNA. We could not drive the car away as it had been left damaged. The cost of fixing it was more than it was worth. So we sold it as scrap. God had answered our prayer...it was not a burnt out wreck!