Honeymoon prayer

[Servant89]

As I parked my car, I noticed the car next to me had the hood opened and the owner was playing with the battery cables. I asked him if he needed help and he told me his battery was dead. I got my jumper cables and connected them between my car battery and his car battery. He tried starting his car but there was nothing, no noise, nothing. His car was totally dead. Then I told him to remove his car battery. I removed my car battery too and placed it in his car but there was no noise, nothing. His car was dead. He removed my battery and placed it back into my car. After he put his battery back into his car, I told him to put my car battery back into his car. He said: “But we tried that already. That ain’t it. It does not work.” I insisted (with a tone of voice that implied I have a secret weapon). He looked at me like I was weird but he did it anyway, he placed my car battery in his car one more time. While he removed his battery and placed my battery in his car, I was praying. I prayed to God to send an angel that knew about car mechanics and electrical cables. I do not know if there is such a thing, but I prayed it anyway. Then he went inside his car, hesitated for a moment and as soon as he twisted the car key, the car started as if it were brand new. His eyes opened wide and he said to me: “Man! You have something good going for you!”. I did not say anything back to him. I just smiled back at him while saying to myself: “I know.”

Shalom

[Servant89]

The one area I stink the most, is my desire for pornographic material. I became a Christian in 1985. I got married in 1989 and it was not until 1992 when I could finally spend a whole year without seeing any of that stuff. Since then I have failed several times. I remember one time I bought a DVD and when I got home, I put it in the trash before I entered the house. I remember I spend that day questioning why I did that. Why spend money on something that was not good for me? Other times I failed and the Lord chastised me quickly and strongly. The children that he loves, the chastises many times.

Heb 12:6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

And I know he loves me a lot because he chastises me quickly. One day I bought another XXX DVD to watch. As I drove home…. I hesitated. I said to myself, “Don’t do it. If you do it, the Lord is going to let you have it. You will be sorry you did it. Throw it in the trash!” But I decided that day that I was going to watch it anyway. I picked up my briefcase to hide it in there. I opened my briefcase, and again, I hesitated. Don’t do it (I told myself). He will spank you quickly! You know how the Lord deals with you, he wont be late for correction! Don’t do it!”. I hesitated for another 30 seconds with the briefcase opened and the DVD on hand. Finally, I decided I was going to watch it (I told you I stink) and I placed it inside the briefcase and I closed the briefcase. As soon as I closed the briefcase (we are talking one tenth of a second after), while doing 40 miles per hour, my car died, it totally died. I had to get a tow truck, it cost me over $500 to fix it, but I was happy. As soon as the car died I was happy. I was happy to see how fast God showed up with his correction (a tenth of a second is amazingly fast!). I was incredibly happy to see how, in spite of how much I stink, God continues to love me that much. I was so happy to see how incredibly real God is to me and how special I am to him. I felt loved by God when my car died. I was happy and I no longer had any desire for that DVD. I threw the DVD out the window and then I realized someone might pick it up and commit sin because of what I threw out the window, so, I came back, picked it up, and drove to a trash can and dump it there. I went home happy.

No, I am not here to impress you with my righteousness or my holiness. I am a donkey that sometimes the Lord causes to talk.

Shalom

[Servant89]

I went with my boss uptown to see our sponsors. I had a presentation dealing with a proposal for data loggers. While we waited outside the office of our sponsor, I told my boss: “Watch and see, I will have him eating out of my hand. Watch how easy it will be for me to get him to fund this proposal. Watch me.” We went in and before I said a word, the sponsor which had my proposal in hand said: “This is crap, this is nonsense, I wont fund this.” He did not allow me to say one word. He kept saying the idea was nonsense and we left the office without me saying a single word. When we were outside, I told my boss with excitement: “Did you see that? Remember how arrogant I was before entering his office? Remember how many times I told you: watch me? That I was going to have him eating out of my hand? Remember that?”. Then I told him: “This is my life. Every time I am arrogant, God lets me know I fell outside the boundary. Every time!” I was sharing that with him with extreme joy about how real God is to me.

Prov 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

Shalom

[Servant89]

I was the team leader of a rocket motor program and Tony was part of the team, but Tony had problems, his heart was not in the program. He was slow, did not care for schedules, basically he was the worst member of the team. One day, I do not remember what he failed to do, but I lost it. I screamed at him (people heard me from their cubicles). And as soon as I screamed at him God showed up in the room. I felt so ashamed. It broke my heart to let the Lord see how I treated Tony. I was broken hearted, really broken hearted. And as soon as I screamed at Tony and felt the presence of the Lord, I bowed my head in shame and said to Tony: “You did not deserve that, please forgive me Tony.” To that, Tony answered and said: “Oh, I deserved that alright.” And I said: No Tony, you did not deserve that, please Tony, please forgive me, you did not deserve that, I am so sorry.” I almost cried. And then Tony said: “I forgive you.” I said: “Thank you.” And I left with my head down in shame. From that moment on, Tony changed from being the worst member of the team to the hardest working one. I did not apologize to Tony to get him to become a better employee. But I saw the power that is in us to change people, when we swallow up our ego and do business the way we are called to do business. God shows up. It is written:

Prov 16:7 When a man's ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.

Shalom

[Servant89]

This is something I learned and how I learned about it. I was leading a church service for a very small group of Hispanics (about 11 or 12). At the end, we got together in a circle, holding hands to pray. Before I could start, a young man started speaking in tongues and then he gave the interpretation. And this was his interpretation: “Praise me, I am your God, praise me, worship me, I want your praises, praise me louder. Lift me up, exhalt me, I am your God, worship me.” To which, everyone in the circle started praising the Lord…all, but me. At the end of the prayer, as I reached my car at the parking lot to leave the place, the young man approached me and asked me: Why didn’t you praise the Lord when the Spirit asked you to? And I said to him: “That did not sound like the Spirit of my Lord at all.” And that was the end of that conversation. As I drove home, I wondered if I was right in my assessment. So, I went to my computer and I did a Bible search (Thank God for computers!!!). I searched the following phrases: Praise me, exhalt me, lift me up, adore me, and guess what, none of them are in the Bible. Actually, I found out the command to “worship me” is found one time in the Bible. It is Satan talking when he told Jesus: “All this I will give you if you bow down and worship me.” I learned that God the Son points to the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Father points to the Son and the Spirit and the Holy Spirit points to the Father and the Son. But none points to himself. Worship has to come from our hearts, because we want to, not by command. That is the lesson of the 10 lepers in Luke 17:11-19.

Shalom

[saved11]

... . I was so happy to see how incredibly real God is to me and how special I am to him. I felt loved by God when my car died. I was happy and I no longer had any desire for that DVD.

It is true. We are the happiest when we see God loving us. Nothing else comes close. Ok, sorry for the threadjack.

[Servant89]

It is true. We are the happiest when we see God loving us. Nothing else comes close. Ok, sorry for the threadjack.

Your feedback made me smile. Thank you! You can hijack my thread any day.

Shalom

[Servant89]

I believe now that the modern concept of tithing is a man-made doctrine. I give because I want to, not because I have to. See the threat on tithing (Bible chat). I believe we should give as we purposed in our hearts, not grudgingly or out of necessity for the Lord loves the cheerful giver. But I taught and practiced tithing for many years. One thing I noticed immediately after I started giving to the Lord is that God is faithful to his word. And his ability to bless me far out-weights my ability to bless myself. When I became a Christian, I moved in with the only Christian friend that I had. He asked me if I tithed (he was a tither). I told him: No, I can’t. He said to me: “I made less money than you make. I have a mortgage payment of a new fully furnished house, you only pay $200 a month for your room and you only owe a bed and a TV. I have a new car payment, you have no car payments except the insurance…. And I tithe. How come you can’t? “ I said: Good point! So I started giving. What happened next (within 3 weeks) was so overwhelming I had no choice but to thank God more, I was giving about 18 %. My employer started paying my mortgage (tax free, apart from my salary). My employer also paid for my phone, my water, my electricity, my gasoline, and a rental car. Besides that, my employer paid enough airline trips to accumulate 300,000 miles in 2.5 years. Additionally, my employer paid me $1,000 a month for food, which was tax free, whether I spent the money or not on food. Actually, when you come to think of it, giving only 18% is not impressive under that faucet of blessing I was standing. At one time I gave 25% in one month and two weeks later I got an award that after paying the taxes on the award money, I had more than the 25% I gave the Lord and I realized I could not out-give God. The more I gave, the more God blessed me. I remember one time I went to Burger King and there I met a Hispanic pastor and an evangelist that had 5 children and one of them had cancer. He quit his job in CA to go to preach in Mexico. I was so impressed that I found out the church he was going, verified his testimony and wrote him a check = my tithing for 10 months. Within a month, two companies offered me a job for 33% more salary which I rejected. My boss found out about it, and my employer matched the offer. When my boss told me, this is what he said to me: “They asked me if I thought you were worthy of a promotion and I told them no. They asked the Division Director if he thought you were worthy of a promotion and he said no. They asked the Department Head if he thought you were worthy of a promotion and he said no. But the Technical Director is forcing us to promote you, in order to keep you here, so starting this week, you will be making 33% more money.

There is a verse that says: Rom 8:31 …If God be for us, who can be against us?

Shalom

[Servant89]

Remember I told you I stink? Well, cover up your noses (you might throw up while reading this). After seeing how much God blessed me for 2.5 years of giving to the Lord, I said to the Lord:

“Lord, I have been good in giving, so, in order to have enough money to buy me a house, I hope you do not mind if I start saving money for a year. So, I wont give you anything this year in order to save money to buy a house. Is that ok?”

When I said that, I had $5,000 in savings. Well, I did not give anything that Sunday. I did not give anything the following Sunday (at the mouth of 2 witnesses let everything be established). Immediately after that, I got a phone call from headquarters. The faucet of blessing that I was standing on, was closed, completely closed. I was impressed about how quickly that happened. But I did not start giving to the Lord. Did I mention that I am dumb and I stink? I gave him nothing for a whole year. I was saving for my new house. At the end of the year I saved nothing, not one single cent. Actually, I even lost the $5,000 I had at the beginning of the year. What a data point! God is real to me.

It gets better, hang on … more coming …

Shalom

[Servant89]

After spending one year without giving anything to the Lord, not one cent, I got married. I had to borrow $5,000 from my brother to buy my house because I had no money. When I got married, my wife was Catholic, she belonged to a group called “Daughters of Mary”. One time I wanted to give $100 to the Church and we had a big fight. She did not want me to give to the Church. I told the Lord one day to take my giving some other way, like house maintenance, car repairs and such. About three hours after I said that, the first thing showed up (my car insurance doubled). Within a couple of more hours two more things piled on, the third one was that someone hit my car while it was parked (a hit and run) and I did not have anyone to pay for it, I had to call my insurance agent which just doubled my fee. At that time, I lifted my hand to heaven with an open palm signaling “stop” and said to the Lord: I had enough Lord, please stop. I cannot handle another one. And nothing more (bad) happened that day. I wanted to show the Lord my righteousness only to find out I am not that righteous. My wife’s car broke costing us $4,000 a few months later. And after that, I decided to give to the Lord and get ready for a fight with my wife when she finds out. I gave 10% of my salary for that month in one Sunday offering. About 3 days later I found my wife crying, but she was not yet aware of my offering. I asked her what happened and she told me while crying, that she was going to get fired from her job. She did something wrong and she had to tell her boss and she was afraid that her boss was going to fire her the moment he finds out. I asked her if she wanted me to pray for her and she said yes. I was thrilled! I was happy! We were about to pray together for the first time! But I did not let her know I was happy. My facial expression was serious, I looked concerned about the situation but inside I was happy that we were about to talk to the Lord as a couple. I prayed like this: “Lord, there is none like you. There is no one that can compare to you in power and strength. Take heed to my prayer Lord. I ask you to become real to my wife the way you are real to me. You know her situation. You know what bothers my wife. I need you to intervene and show yourself strong in her life. But I want something so powerful that she will have no excuse for not believing in you. I want something so extreme that she will be in awe at your power and goodness. I want something worthy of your name, so that she will never forget it. In Jesus’ name I pray these things, Amen. The following day she called me. I asked her: Did you talk to your boss? And she said yes. I asked her: Did he fire you? And I was honestly hoping to hear her say: “No, he did not fire me”. I was hoping to hear her say that so I could say: I knew it! Glory to God. But that is not what she said. When I asked her if he fired her, her answer was: “He made me a manager and increased my salary. I am now making 12% more money.” Because I believed I heard wrong, I asked her: What? And she repeated that. I took advantage of the moment to tell her about my offering to the Lord and how the Lord is more powerful to bless us than we can bless ourselves and that is how I was able to start giving to the Lord without my wife challenging my offerings anymore.

Shalom

[Servant89]

My boss told me a Captain was coming (our sponsor) and he wanted me to pick up the garbage around the building (to make it look nice for the Captain). I went out fully determined that no one was going to beat me at picking up garbage that morning. I did a fantastic job. When I came inside the building the other engineers told me: “Man, don’t you have any dignity?”. I did not answer anything, I just walked to my office. The Bible says that if someone forces me to carry something one mile, that I should go two miles. It does not say if we get paid as an engineer. I was working as a Chemical Engineer then, I was getting paid as a chemical engineer to pick up garbage, I should not complain then. I had just become a Christian when he asked me that, and the Bible says that before honor, there is humility. The Lord wanted to bless me, but I had to pass the test first. After my boss saw that, he picked me to be the one that goes on travel to San Jose, California. That is how I got so blessed for 2.5 years. My first title on that assignment was “gofer”, meaning go for this, go for that.

When I arrived, I remember another engineer part of our team sitting next to me telling someone on the phone:

“Why did they send this young man here? (he was talking about me). He does not know anything. He can’t help us.”

As I heard that, I said to myself: He is right, I am lost, I have no clue what I have to. Haven’t they told him that I am a gofer, just a gofer? But little by little, the Lord lifted up my head. At one time the big boss asked me to take a look at another rocket motor program in the facility that was having problems. They ruined the last three batches of propellant (solid fuel). When I asked what happened, I could not understand what they were talking about. There were terms I never heard before, like "curative ratio" and so forth. But I asked for the data on how they selected the key parameter. I plotted the data together and when I did that, it was clear why they were having problems. I asked a 10 year old if he could figure out what curative ratio I should select by looking at the chart I made which had labeled "acceptable" and "unacceptable" areas based on the specification, and he was able to do it (it was that simple). It was no rocket science. The key to the solution was to plot the data together, which for some reason, the local engineers never did. They were reluctant to follow my advice, but the person with the checkbook forced them to follow my direction. They asked me what I predicted for performance and I told them by showing them from the plotted data. They said: We never had it that good. To that I said: Because you never ever tried it in this area before (pointing to the plotted data). A couple of weeks later, the big boss asked me about that program. I had just received the data on the latest production run, so I gave him this answer. The first words out of my mouth on the phone were: “GOD LIKES ME! They had never ever had a batch of propellant this good. It came exactly as I predicted based on the data!” I still did not understand the term “curative ratio” but the Lord used this donkey to show the experts. It is written:

1 Cor 1:27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

Wait wait wait, it gets better ! Wait!

Shalom

[Servant89]

While I was in California, my department head from headquarters called me and said to me:

“I have in my hands the last letter that you wrote. Listen, we cannot let you write official Navy letters that start with a first sentence that reads: “Hi there.” Followed by a second and third sentences that reads: “How are things on the mountain top? Back here in the trenches …” And we definitively can not let you finish a paragraph that ends with: “Praise God!”. You need to write the way we write in the Navy, you know the style, right?”

To that I said: "Yes Sir! It will be as you wish." And I did. After I send out my next letter following the normal official style of writing, I got a call back from the guy with the checkbook, the one that paid everyone. He asked me: “What happened?” I said: “About what?” He said: “Your writing is different, how come?” I told him my department head called me a couple of days ago telling I had to write in a more formal way.” He asked me who was my Department Head and I told him. Then he said to me: “You have to do what your department head tells you, I called because I was just wondering the reason for the change in writing style.” And we ended the conversation. About 5 minutes after I hung the phone, I got another phone call. It was my department head from headquarters. He said to me: “Go back to your old style of writing. Everyone in the sponsor’s office loves the way you write and they do not want you to change.”

AND PEOPLE ASK ME WHY I JUMP AND DANCE IN CHURCH DURING WORSHIP !!!!

Shalom

[Servant89]

It is more fun to share our victories than our defeats. Here are some of my victories over the flesh. I used humor on both situations to avoid bringing condemnation to those tempting me.

I went on government travel to Las Vegas, NV for a rocket motor conference. The whole place [Las Vegas] was packed. There was no room in the hotels. They were all jammed-packed. When I arrived at my hotel, the name of the show in that hotel was “Sin city, bad girls”. Not a good sign. While I was going up in the elevator, three beautiful young women asked me in the elevator if they could stay with me because there was no room anywhere else. I answered them with a smile: “The thing is, that if I do that, I am sure that within two weeks I will be wearing my testicles as ear rings.” They all laughed real loud and left the elevator laughing. I did not have to point the finger at their flaws, I am busy enough dealing with mine. Later the hotel kicked me out because a misunderstanding over the reservation (that was a great thing) and I ended up in a hotel with no pay-per-view, free breakfast and better beds. That was a victory travel week.

On another occasion, I was on travel with 3 other male engineers to LA. The one driving saw the sign that said “Nude Girls” and said: “I have nudity in my mind. Lets go there.” The others said: “Yes, lets go.” Then I said: “No, I can’t. I can’t handle that.” Then the driver thought I was being sarcastic and said: “Sure, I guess we are all going in.” And he started turning towards the place. I said:

“No, I mean that, if you take me there, I will spend my money on that place, you guys will want to leave an hour later and I will be staying back there until I am broke. Please, I mean it, I cannot handle that. I go to sexaholic anonimous. Help me out, I like that stuff too much, help me out.”

The driver saw that I was determined not to go and continued driving away from that place. That is how we all skipped going to that strip club. I pointed to my sin instead of pointing to the sins of others. I am too busy dealing with mine to have time to consider the sins of others. This was another victory travel week.

Shalom

[Servant89]

My division director burst into my office with a sense of urgency and told me he was looking for a memo written before computers (not in digital form) about program x and dealing with subject Z. I told him I did not work on that program but behind me was a filing cabinet left by so and so who retired and worked on that program. I told him most of the files there pertained to that program. He started looking for it (desperately). I felt sorry for him and quietly I started praying for him asking the Lord to help him find the memo. He was on his knees looking at the deep end of the bottom drawer when the middle of a pile of 3 inch thick binders on top of that filing cabinet got my attention. There were like 8 or 9 thick binders over the file cabinet. All the binders looked the same, but for some reason I pulled the one almost at the middle and opened it about the middle section and to my surprise, there it was, right where I opened it, the memo he just described. I was in shock. I froze. I did not move and my facial expression was of shock. After a while, he noticed I was not moving and when he looked at me, he stared for a while and then he asked: “Did you find the memo?”. I did not answer. He asked again: Did you find the memo?”. I answered back by saying: “Man, prayer works!” And my facial expression was still of disbelief. He answered back: “Oh, I was praying too, I was praying too!”. He got up looked at the memo and said: "This is it", he took it away from me and left the office.

Shalom

[Servant89]

All of my post in this thread, this one is the most important. This is the one biblical concept that every Christian should know and yet, 97% of the Christians are not aware of it. This is where the rubber meets the road. I call it the G factor. G stands for grace. This is what turned happy Jesus into upset Jesus in the gospels. This is what caused the Apostle Paul to turn from “I thank God for you” to: “I curse you”. This is the line that divided those under grace versus those under the law. It is huge. This is the whole issue of 2 Cor 3. I told this to one Pastor and he told me that I should not share this with the laity because they would not understand. I believe there are no teachers teaching it, because this is something that God wants you to get, believe and understand, without explanation. Remember the 10 lepers? How Jesus was disappointed at the 9 that obeyed him and was glad with the one that turned back from doing the commandment in Luke 17:11-19? Remember that the key thing that the Samaritan Leper did that was awesome was also the one thing that Jesus did not explain? This is it. I am not going to explain it on this post. But I will give you an example where the children of this world got the point, the key point that Christians can’t get (see Luke 16:8).

It was a program review, a big one, with around 200 engineers. The program alone is about 10 billion dollars. Each presenter stood up, presented and sat down. No one applauded and no comments of appreciation were made. Everyone briefed on the status of their program and sat down… all but me (I was different). In a place where no one got applauded after finishing their presentation, I got a standing ovation. At the end of the meeting the sponsor told me it was a great presentation and gave me a model of the missile as a gift. What did I do that created such an impression? I put into practice this biblical principle that Christians can’t get. The one slide that caused them to stand to their feet had only four bullets. I started describing that slide with the four bullets like this:

“Last week I went to see the sponsor and after I left them, I found myself on a traffic jam. After spending 20 minutes on the traffic jam I came to the jamming point and found out that the thing causing the jam was a plastic drum in the middle of the road. I stopped the car, got out of the car and removed the plastic drum which was empty and weighed about 10 pounds. While driving back I wondered why is it that people do not remove things that cause traffic jams and are easy to remove. I am here to tell you about other traffic jams that we find at work and no one does anything to remove them. Well I did. I am here to tell you about them, all these four examples. But to make them happen, I had to break the law. Yes I broke the law. I broke the law with full knowledge of the law. Captain, I spent your money on items I was not supposed to buy and services I was not funded to provide. I am guilty and I can’t wait to tell you about it!“

At that time, the faces on most people were saying: “He is dead meat. He will be fired.”

I proceeded to describe in much more detail than what you see here each one of the situations. I told them how I spent $880 to save the government $125,000. Then I explained how by spending illegally $1,600 of the Captain’s money I prevented the Captain’s program from experiencing 6 months delays on the schedule and saved over $40,000. Then I explained how I designed a lifting beam adapter that precluded redesigning the lifting beam and redesigning the inert motor saving another $90,000 and keeping production on schedule. I told them that was not my job, that I did not get funded to design, fabricate, test or qualify handling equipment but I did it anyway. I also described how I spent $6,700 on 6 inert AFDs using rejected parts that worked perfectly and passed qualification and I precluded the production schedule to be delayed 14 months.

And before I finished talking, half the audience was on their feet giving me a standing ovation. The children of this world got it, they got it good (Luke 16:8).

Shalom