“REED” This
Aggravation or Blessing?
This past Saturday, I enjoyed a day of rest. That day of rest included watching a good amount of college football and ended with a wonderful game where Arkansas offensively ran all over and defensively shut down our old rival, Texas. I have to say, I was surprised the Hogs dominated that game from start to finish, but it was certainly a welcomed surprise. I did go grocery shopping for about an hour, and then helped cook supper, so I wasn’t necessarily lazy all day. One thing that was concerning during that game where Arkansas beat Texas, was we noticed the back part of our house was warmer than where the thermostat was set. That area of the house is on a separate unit and wasn’t blowing cold air like it had been earlier in the day. The air that was blowing was warm, hence the rise in temperature. I didn’t know why it wasn’t blowing cold air anymore, but I couldn’t do anything about it at 10:00 on a Saturday night. I would have to wait and call my AC guy first thing Monday morning. Sleeping in our room Sunday evening after no air conditioning through the day was a lot warmer than the previous night. 80 degrees wasn’t too bad with the ceiling fans running, but was definitely too warm for Debbie. Monday morning the call was made and the repairman would be coming that afternoon. Turns out, the outside part of the unit was not working and the reason was a breaker had been tripped. I couldn’t believe it. All that needed done to fix it was flipping a switch! But how was I to know that? Everything on the inside was working fine. Why was the outside part on a different breaker? After the switch was flipped back on, everything worked fine and the unit ran like a charm. I don’t mind paying the repairman for his time, but I’m wishing I had known to check the breaker box and been able to fix it myself instead of being out the repair bill.
Little things like that can be so aggravating. I remember one time in Florida, we had a leak around our hot water heater on a Saturday morning. The plumber came out and simply had to tighten a screw on a valve a couple of turns to fix it. He hated to charge me the “weekend rate”, but his company knew he made the call and he had to do it. How did that screw come loose? That valve had never been turned in the eight years I had lived there. I got to wondering why that breaker had tripped. There was no wind or storm that came through and made the electricity flicker or go off. We didn’t have a power surge. Even the repairman couldn’t figure out what had made it trip. And why did I have to pay for something so simple?
I don’t know why it happened, but God does. He might let me know some time, but He might not. Then I thought, maybe He let it happen because the repairman needed a little more money this month. Sure, he’s busy, but maybe he has a need that the little bit I paid would help. Maybe that plumber in Florida needed some encouragement that Saturday as we all had a good laugh about him having to come to our house because of a loose screw. If we truly believe God knows all and is working all around us, sometimes in mysterious ways, why can’t He be using things like this to help someone? He proved that to me a few years back when my car broke down in north Georgia and the repairman had prayed just that morning for God to send someone to encourage him that day, and that someone was me. God let my car break down to make that happen. Another time when a vacation rental was not cleaned after the prior guest, the cleaning woman finally came and was so grateful that we were so nice about it. It wasn’t a big deal to us – we were on vacation. And being nice gave us the opportunity to share a little about Jesus with her. It’s not always easy to put up with the little difficulties in life. But, if we look at them with the proper attitude, we may be able to handle them a lot better and even be a blessing to someone else. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.”
The next time something like this happens, we all need to try and keep a good attitude and look for how God might use us to be a blessing in the situation.
Bro. Paul Reed
Tuesday, September 14, 2021