Okay, I spent last weekend at a swim meet with very limited parking. We’re talking such limited parking, people resorted to parking on the street, outside the parking lot, under that sign that explicitly said, “No Parking At Any Time.”

My husband drove around and around, looking desperately. We’re not afraid of walking, but this was ridiculous. There was no place to park, unless maybe we parked five miles away or parked in the “No Parking At Any Time,” area. We didn’t want to risk it.

As my husband’s agitation grew, I told him he could go on in, and I would try and find a spot. He asked me if I was sure. I said I was. I don’t have to drive to work everyday, so I have more patience. Just go, I said.

So, I dropped off the hubby, then began a prayer. I asked the Lord for a parking spot. There were no spots, ANYWHERE. It was one of those deals, where you turn down a lane, and three cars are ahead of you, also looking for parking. If someone does leave, you are back three cars and have zero chance of getting a parking spot. But I kept up my prayer, asking God for a parking spot. I probably drove about ten minutes, up and down the different lanes, behind two to three cars, doing the exact same thing. The situation was bleak.

But for the believer, God hears our prayers. He knows our every thought. He knows our every frustration. He knows the number of hairs on our head.

I decided to head down to the farthest end of the parking lot, and work my way back through the lot, again. As I went passed a lane that was probably closest to the entrance, there at the end of the lane, was a wide open parking spot. I quickly jetted in there. I looked up in front of me for the “No Parking Sign.” There wasn’t any. I looked up the lane. There were three cars coming the opposite direction, all lined up at the other end of the lane. I got out of the car, to look for the red curb (the direct warning, that no one can park here). There was no red curb. There was no handicap sign. There was no sign telling me I couldn’t park here. This was a legitimate empty parking spot, in the middle of an insane parking lot, where cars were circling round and round like vultures flying over a dead cow in the desert. Nobody had seen this spot. I hadn’t seen the spot, until I was right upon it. How could nobody see this spot?

Well, I prayed. I take seriously the admonition to “Pray without ceasing.’ Or, the verse in Philippians 4:6:

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

Some of you may be hesitant to ask God for such trivial things. I want to encourage you not to be. God is a big, big God. He is able to hear every single one of our prayers. He hears every single one of the billions of prayers that are prayed every second of the day. Every single one of them. He is powerful, to answer every single one of those billions of prayers prayed. God is greater than all of our needs. There is nothing He can’t handle. And, He asks us to pray. He asks us to pray for the big things in our lives. He asks us to pray for the little, seemingly insignificant things in our lives, like parking spots.

If God asks us to pray for everything, why don’t we? I want to encourage you to do this. Don’t worry that God’s too busy. Don’t worry that your prayer may seem tiny or insignificant compared to the big huge problems in the world. He says to call upon Him, for everything.

Soon after I dropped off the hubby, I came walking into the pool. I sat down next to him, and he looked at me with a puzzled look in his face.

Hubby: Where’d you park?

Me: I parked in the lot, really close to the entrance.

Hubby: How’d you get a spot like that?

Me: I prayed.

I flashed him a great big smile. God is always good.

A number of years ago I started praying for a mini van. We were a young family of four, going on field trips and I needed a mini van to cart us around in. We didn’t have the money for it, but I resorted myself to simply praying for it.

I started making this a regular prayer, for a mini van. Flash forward to three months later. I took the kids to a museum in the morning. My son was three at the time, and we just got home, in time for him to take a small nap. Then I needed to drive to my husband’s work and bring him some clothes. An hour and twenty minutes later, I came out to the parking lot where my car is parked. It wasn’t there. I began to second guess myself. Didn’t I park in this spot, right in front of the garage? Just to be sure, I walked towards the street to see if I parked there. Maybe I needed the nap, and was too tired to remember. Nope. My car wasn’t there either. I looked all around. My car was no where to be seen.

It began to slowly dawn on me. “I think my car has been stolen.” I stood outside where my car should have been parked, realizing that in fact, my car was stolen. I went back into the house to call the police. I called 911 and reported my car stolen. A few minutes later, a policewoman came to my house to take a report. After she left, I went back into my house to call my insurance company.

As time passed, I began to wonder why in the world my car was stolen. This wasn’t exactly what I had been praying for. I’d been praying for a mini van. I needed a car. But now, the one good car, or at least the one good car we thought was the good car, was stolen. I was confused on the matter. How is it, I pray for a mini van and now one of our cars is stolen?

God says His ways are not our ways. That was certainly true in this scenario. I kept wondering, why was our car stolen? I’d been praying for a mini van, but now we were down to one car. It didn’t make sense.

But the timing was good. If we had to get a car stolen, this was a good time to do it. My husband was just a few days away from his summer vacation. We wouldn’t need two cars then. We also planned to go to Alaska for three weeks, so we really didn’t need a car then. I was still confused, though.

God is always working in a believer’s life. He always hears our prayers. He always answers us. I couldn’t see how God was working. But I knew He had my best interests at heart.

For the whole summer, we researched cars, and found a mini van we liked. The car that was stolen, gave us a small amount of money, from our insurance. We were able to use that money as a down payment for the new mini van.

It all worked out perfectly. You see, I was thinking we would get rid of the car that didn’t get stolen. But we would not have gotten any money for it. The car that got stolen, was actually a lemon. It was plagued with problems that cost us a lot of money to fix. God took care of it all. We got rid of the lemon car. We had a small amount of money for it, to make a down payment. The timing worked out well for our schedule. Looking back I can see God’s hand in all of it.

So often God’s promises don’t seem to match our reality. When I started praying for the mini van, I didn’t expect to get our car stolen. But it all worked out better than I could have even thought of.

A believer must trust that God has heard their prayers, because He has. A believer must believe that God has their best interests at heart, because He does. If you know the Lord and are going through something. Just wait. Looking back you will see God’s fingerprints all over your life.

He was born a humble birth. After His birth, He was laid in a manager, the feeding trough for the animals in that stable. He grew up in a poor family, a carpenter’s son. He grew up and began a ministry, healing people and telling people He would die soon.

He declared Himself to be God. Actually God, Himself. How could that be? He was a man and poor One at that. He offended the Jews of His day by making such blasphemous  statements.

They crucified Him. They nailed His body to a wooden cross, after they had beaten Him so badly, His back was torn to shreds from the beating. They mocked Him, before nailing His hands and feet to the cross. They mocked Him as He was dying. They taunted Him and yelled at Him to come down off the cross and save Himself. Why couldn’t He save Himself?

He died, there on the cross. A crown of thorns still pressed into His brow. The world went completely dark. An earthquake shook the planet. His disciples ran to hide, afraid they would be next.

Three days later, He rose from the dead. He appeared to hundreds and thousands of people. He conquered both sin and death.

Why did He die?

He died for the future sins of the man who killed 17 people, last February 14. He died for the sins of the 17 people who died that day at the hands of the shooter. He died for the sins of the mass shooter in Vegas. And He died for the sins of every victim, that shooter killed. He died for the sins of every single victim who has ever died from a mass shooting. He died for the sins of every single shooter who has committed those mass shootings.  His shed blood, will clean any sinner who accepts Him.

His shed blood, cleansed Billy Graham. Billy Graham accepted Him, and went to tell thousands, upon thousands of His blood, the cleansing power of His shed blood on the cross.

He died for every single human being that has ever lived and are yet to live. He died for every single human being’s sins, the horrific ones, and the small ones. He died that for those of us who accept His death, as a substitute for our sins, we can be washed clean.

He died for everyone.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life,” John 3:16

I read a quote the other week that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

“Sometimes we need the bitter to taste the sweet.” Ruth Soukup. (Living Well Spending Less)

That quote brought back all kinds of memories and framed those memories, so I understood them.

One particular memory, was a long time ago, when I was first married and just out of college. I was working at a psych hospital. It was better than the group home, but I wanted more involvement with the patients. I heard about a job at the local school district. It was a counseling job, working with elementary students. It paid more an hour and I got to work directly with kids. I decided to go for the job. I got an interview. The interview went well, I thought. But I didn’t hear from the people. I kept calling them, trying to get a hold of the psychologists who interviewed me, but no one would call me back. I kept praying about it, asking God for the job. Finally, I got a call. One of the psychologists called me at my home on a Sunday night.

The woman who called me was one of the psychologists who interviewed me. She was friendly and kind. She told me I had an excellent interview. There were three of them in the interview, and they all agreed, they liked me a lot. But…There was that dreaded word-but. She explained to me that I didn’t have a Master’s degree and therefore, they couldn’t give me the job. If I was just in a Master’s Degree program, they would quickly give me the job. I was crushed. I was devastated. I wanted that job so badly. When I got off the phone, I sobbed. I cried and cried bitter tears.

I went back to my job at the psych hospital, disappointed. But I had done everything I could, I just wasn’t qualified. I resigned myself to my current job.

Then, a week later I got another call. It was a Sunday night again. It was the same psychologist who called me the week before. She had a proposal for me. There was a tough school in the district, with tough kids to deal with. But if I was willing to get myself into a master’s degree program within a year, the job was mine!

I got the job! I was elated. It tasted so sweet. So much sweeter, since I had tasted the bitterness first. I thanked God. I accepted the job and loved every minute of it. I loved being able to practice my counseling skills. I loved working with the students. I loved the new school schedule. It was probably one of my most favorite jobs. A sweet, sweet job it was.

I’ve always wondered why I got denied the job at first. Why go through the bitterness of being rejected? But “sometimes we need the bitter to taste the sweet.” I tasted the bitterness and now the job was so much sweeter. Now it made sense.

Isn’t that true with everything in life? They say hunger makes the best seasoning. Your food tastes so much better, when you are hungry. I’ve heard athletes say they remember their losses. Because after the losses, the wins tastes so much sweeter. “…we need the bitter to taste the sweet.”

God knows that is true in our lives as well. You might be going through something right now. Something bitter. But just wait. For the believer, the sweetness will come. And how much sweeter will it be, since you’ve tasted the bitterness?

For us, who are believers, we endure the bitterness of life on this planet, because we have something sweet to look forward to, heaven. How much sweeter will it be since we’ve tasted the bitterness here on earth? We may be going though sickness, sadness, rejection, stress, loneliness, all kinds of bitterness. But the sweetness of heaven will taste so sweet.

So whatever you are going through, just remember, “Sometimes we need the bitter to taste the sweet.”

I have a picture I got from the fair of two oxen yoked together. I love that picture. It reminds me of one of my favorite passages:

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and You will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. Matthew 11: 28-30.

I like those verses because God is telling me I don’t have to work my tail off, He guides me through it. God does the work for us. The Holy Spirit works within us.

I wasn’t quite sure what a yoke was, until I saw the oxen at the fair. These two large beasts, had a large wooden yoke on them. There were two holes for them to put their heads through. The yoke forced them to work side by side, each pulling their own weight. The oxen are side by side. There isn’t one pulling the other. They are side by side.

And that’s how God says for us to live our lives on this planet. Walk side by side with him, as if we are yoked together. Not only that, he says His yoke is easy and His burden is light. He’s telling us He will do the work for us.

That picture that God gives us, eases my mind. He’s asking us/me to come to Him all of us who are weary and heavy laden. And the best part, He will give us rest. I long for that. As I’ve said, I’ve been struggling a lot lately and these verses lift me up.

I need to be yoked to God. I want to be yoked to God. Right now, I am not happy here. I know it has to do with hormones right now in my body. It also has to do with major changes in my life, besides just my body. I hate change. But big changes are happening. Whether I like it or not, things are changing.

The good effect in all of this, is I cling to God. And that’s where He says He wants all of His children, clinging to Him. So I’m happy to be yoked to God, because He says His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

So if you are struggling like me, God says to take His yoke upon you and His yoke is easy and His burden light. Think about that, Christian. Who better to be yoked to? I don’t think we will fail, if we are yoked to Him.