Weekly Update

Weekly Update

For those of you who didn’t know, when I’m not doing my pastoral thing at Hope Chapel, I earn money working at Pleasant Hawaiian Holidays. I have been working there for many years and have made some great friendships. This story involves one of those friends. There is a girl there called Claire, who I have known for five years. She’s my age, is married, has three kids and comes from a Catholic family. On Sunday morning we were assigned to the same station and from the time we have our regular morning meeting until the time we actually start doing any work there is a period of about 30 minutes. During this break time I noticed that she was looking through the Yellow Pages and scribbling some notes. Of course, being the inquisitive (some would even say nosy) person that I am, I had to ask what she was looking for. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey, what are you looking for?
Her: You’re going to laugh if I tell you.
Me: Oh, is it “clowns”?
Her: No, you’re going to laugh because you don’t believe in it.
Me: Oh, is it “clowns”?

I then found out that she wasn’t looking for clowns, but she was actually looking for a psychic. Upon further investigation I discovered that she was borrowing her sister-in-law’s car, which was really a loaner, and her 18 month-old son lost the key. She said she searched every nook and cranny in her house and she couldn’t find it. I suggested that she pray but she told me that she already prayed. So I said well why don’t we pray about it one more time. She agreed so I took her on the side and prayed with her. Now in my mind I thought it was over with. I truly believed that she would find her keys. She, however, was not so convinced. She asked me if I would go and see the psychic with her after work. I told her she didn’t have to any more because we prayed for it and it was already done. She wanted to know how I was so sure and then she asked me what I would do if I was in her situation.

I can honestly say that the psychic option would have never entered my head so I had no idea what she was thinking. So I said here’s what we’ll do. If we pray and then we see a psychic and then she goes home and finds the key, how would we know who came through? In essence, who answered the prayer? I told her to wait a day and if she still doesn’t find the key, I would go with her to see the psychic and even go to her house (in Ewa Beach) and help her look for it. To make an already long story short, we finished our shift and went home. I honestly didn’t even give it much thought until I received a phone call about 45 minutes after our shift ended. Wouldn’t you know it…she found her key!

So how did I know that she would find her key? Well first of all the Bible says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done” (Philippians 4:6). Check, we did that. Then, this is the key (no pun intended): “whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours” (Mark 11:24). So here is where we have a choice to make. We can either have faith in God or the devil. We either need to take God at his Word or not. If we believe that “all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20) then we also need to believe that whatever God has promised us will come to pass. This is what my faith believes and this is what enabled me to pray for Claire and know that God was going to come through. So, when you read the Bible, find out what God says about you and what he has promised you, then, choose to believe him and have faith in him and not in any devil or any lie he may try to throw your way.

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