Thoughtful

Saturday night, I found myself across town with about 30 miles worth of gas in my car.  My husband had told me he would get gas in the morning, so I headed toward home.  I knew there was enough gas to get home and to the gas station in the morning, but I asked God to help us extend that gas a little farther by helping me not have to stop at any red lights.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that it didn't take a great amount of faith to ask this because it had happened before, but it was an uncommon occurence, considering the number of stop lights involved.

And the only stoplight I had to stop at was the one where I tried to slow down a bit, way in advance, expecting the light to turn at any minute, with the intention of giving the light time to turn yellow, red, and back to green before I reached it.  Once I realized I had miscalculated, I sped up again, hoping to make it through, but the light turned yellow too soon, so that I had to stop rather than try to make it through the intersection before it changed to red.

I apologized to God there in the car, for trying to take care of it myself, and I did not have to stop at another light.  There were a couple close calls, and there were a couple I had to slow down coming up to them, but I didn't have to stop and wait at any light the rest of my way home.


The whole thing reminded me of the story of Abraham, Sarai, and Hagar.

Honestly, any time I try to make my own way, I am reminded of this story.

God had promised Abraham an heir, more specifically, a son.  And Abraham grew frustrated and decided that God must be needing his help to get this accomplished.  Sarai (later to be renamed Sarah) offered her servant Hagar to have a child with Abraham in her place.  This was a common practice in that day, though not necessarily something God approved, particularly in Abraham's case.

A child was born and caused no end of trouble, especially once Isaac, the child God has promised was born to Sarah.  I've talked about this story in the past, so I won't go any further into the story, but I simply want to make the point that we as humans have a tendency to *help* God along, when He doesn't need our help, and sometimes our help is even a hindrance.

I would love to hear about a time that you tried to help God and the lesson you learned from it.  Please leave your comments below.  I would love to turn one or more of the comments into an opportunity for some of you to guest post here, so I hope you'll tell me your stories!