Do we recognize God’s every day help?

“For He will give His angels [especial] charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all your ways [of obedience and service]. They shall bear you up on their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” (Psalm 91:11, 12 AMP)

I truly believe that we need to acknowledge God in every aspect of our lives from the start of our day to the finish. He is always moving and always watching over us, even when we have no clue (which is most of the time). When we arrived back in Canada after 24 days on the road on a motorcycle without any major problems of any kind, all I could do was thank and praise “my Daddy”.
So many things to thank Him for from our tour, that all I could do was keep saying, “Thank you, Father” over and over. About a month before we left on our holiday, we heard of a pastor and his wife in another province, driving on their motorcycle, hit a deer and killed his wife! Now if that does not make you start to pray every time you move, nothing will.
There are at least three times (again that I am aware of) that God provided angels/people to bring us help along the way. The first time was in Oregon as we were going down the coastal highway, day five of our trip. There are a lot of cities/towns all along the way with bumper to bumper traffic as it is summer holidays. All of a sudden, we hear this clanging noise and my husband pulls over to stop the bike. He looks down and there is a cover underneath the brake pedal etc. that has partially come off. Fortunately, my wonderful husband can fix about anything, so he gets down and shoves this cover up farther under the bike so that it will stay until we get to the next city as it just needs a certain type of bolt. We pull in to this gas/farm hardware store a few miles down the highway. In Oregon, the law is, your gas has to be pumped for you, except for a motorcycle, they just hand you the hose and turn on the pump. Sounds silly, right? Apparently, they don’t want to knock over the motorcycles and be liable so that makes some kind of sense to me. This young girl (probably in her late 20’s) comes running out to the pump and does exactly that. My husband is asking her if they would have this type of bolt in their store and she replies, “Oh, yes.” So off he goes and a little while later comes back with the proper bolt. Now, my dear husband tries to prepare for things going wrong and had packed the tools he thought he would need. Of course, the socket he was looking for, he did not have. He is struggling with this thing when this young girl comes back and asks if he is doing okay. He explains that he does not have the proper socket so off she goes to her truck and comes back with a tool kit with guess what, the socket that he needed! She gets down on the ground with him looking up to see where this thing is going and then she says to him, “Do you want me to tighten that for you as my hands are smaller and I can reach up in to the hole?” Well, he was more than excited to have her help and she tightened up the bolt and everything was good. To me she was an angel with skin on!
The second time I witnessed God’s angels with skin on was in CA on I5. We were driving from San Jose to Redding, heading for Bethel church for the week-end. The temperature was 102 and it was so hot driving on a motorcycle as the breeze you normally get was HOT! It was hard to get any air! I was really struggling with the heat as our helmets were hot as well and we are down to t-shirts and capris! We kept stopping and getting water/yogourt whatever we could to try keep cool but nothing was working. I kept praying for strength to make it as we are in the middle of nowhere! We stopped at this service station/convenience store for gas and I could not wait to get off the bike! The lady behind the counter was amazing! I guess my face was so red, she was concerned about me. First of all, I went to the washroom and just sat there soaking up the air conditioning trying to cool down. I was in there quite awhile so I figured I should come out as she and my husband might think I had fainted passed out. I come out of the washroom and am sitting on a crate of pop when she comes around the corner to see if I am okay. We bought some nice cold water and stood in the a/c to try get a little cooling. She had a fan by the cash counter where she was working and turned it so we could get a breeze from it. Bless her heart! She is telling us that it is only 10 miles up the interstate to Redding and I am thinking I am going to need God’s supernatural strength to get there as I was so overheated. Of course He gave me the strength and we made the nice motel we had booked.
The third time I witnessed some divine help was when I did something totally dumb, knew I should not, and did it anyway! I truly believe a lot of angels dwell in Oregon! Seriously, we sure met some wonderful people in that state. We were on our way northward and instead of going back up the coast, we went inland. Someone had recommended this little town as everything had a western theme so we toured through there and my husband spotted this leather store. He has been looking for a real leather belt for quite some time now and we thought he might find one in a touristy place like this. He parked the bike, hopped off and I was sitting on it. Now, I do not like sitting on the bike when it is on the side stand as it feels like it is going to fall over. Why, I did not get off, I do not know. What voice was I listening to? I am looking at a unique building as I sit there and decide I should get off to take a picture. Instead of getting off the side I should (which I do every time and know so much better), I hop off the right side. Well, over goes the motorcycle and the little trailer we are towing! This bike alone weighs about 800 lbs. so do you think I am going to get it upright by myself? NOT! Out of nowhere comes this man and he tries to help me, but it is too heavy for the both of us. Well, along comes the next guy and they get the bike upright. I am convinced they were angels as they were quite concerned as to wether I was hurt or not. No, nothing hurt just my pride at being so dumb! The bike looked alright as well which I was very thankful for. There is a whole other lesson in this story that I will share later.

“The Angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him [who revere and worship Him with awe] and each of them He delivers.” (Psalm 34:7 AMP)

God is good

“O taste and see that the Lord [our God] is good! Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who trusts and takes refuge in Him.” (Psalm 34:8 AMP)

God is a good God and He loves us all unconditionally. This may not seem all that important to you, but when I heard that, I was very excited. You see although I accepted Jesus as a young child, I grew up in a lot of religion. My image of God was as long as I was doing good, He was happy with me, if I wasn’t, then He was not so pleased. That was the perception I had of my mother which many years later, like God, I found out was totally wrong! My Dad showed God’s love everywhere he went to everyone he saw, so I was kind of mixed up in my perception of God. Because of this warped perception, I gave up on living a godly life as I figured I could never achieve that. Well, without the help of the Holy Spirit, we certainly cannot! Therefore, I walked away from all the religion and lived on my own (I thought) for quite a few years! Of course, God never gives up and never lets us go no matter how far we try to run. I had never given up on Him, just the religion and the holiness that I felt I could never attain. When you hear God getting blamed for all the bad things that happen, you are quite confused as a child as God has no bad in Him.

“The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” (John 10:10 AMP)
I heard this summed up at a Benny Hinn crusade quite a few years ago and it sure helped me in realizing that God is good all the time. Benny said after preaching for a few minutes, “God is good, the devil is bad. You choose.” I wish you could have seen all the people that rushed forward to accept Jesus that night!

Now, many years later, I know God is good and does not bring the bad things that happen in life to come to pass. You see, when I was 26 years old, I had just given birth 20 days before to our beautiful daughter when my husband suddenly passed away. That certainly got my attention and I started to call on God in my desperation and of course He was there even when I had not been faithful to Him. That started me on a journey that took many years of refining to get me to where I am today. Certainly have not attained but definitely not where I used to be!
In the worst of circumstances, God is always there working behind the scenes providing all that is needed to make it through that day! I have seen His goodness in all my life but especially over the past 32 years since I had to walk through that valley. He has brought me out and put a new song in my heart. Oh, He is my best friend as He never leaves us or forsakes us!
I so love the Psalms and when I read these verses many years ago, I knew that is exactly what He did for me! I was in a deep, dark pit of despair and He reached down and pulled me out. How can I not praise Him for His goodness?

“I WAITED patiently and expectantly for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up out of a horrible pit [a pit of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay (froth and slime), and set my feet upon a rock, steadying my steps and establishing my goings. And He has put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many shall see and fear (revere and worship) and put their trust and confident reliance in the Lord. [Ps. 5:11.] Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; no one can compare with You! If I should declare and speak of them, they are too many to be numbered.” (Psalm 40:1-3, 5 AMP)

God’s Faithfulness

“Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your dwelling place, There shall no evil befall you, nor any plague or calamity come near your tent. For He will give His angels [especial] charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all your ways [of obedience and service]. They shall bear you up on their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.” (Psalm 91:9-12 AMP)

God is so faithful even when we do things that are not necessarily wrong but should be more in tune to what is going on around us! The third day of our motorcycle tour we had some hot weather and as we were heading for Mt. Rainier, so we knew we could endure as the mountains would be cooler. We toured the beautiful mountains in awe over God’s creation and after we came through the park, it was time to decide on a motel room. We had been on the interstate and decided to get off to look for some wi-fi and see what trip advisor had to say about the motels in the area. We stopped at good ol’ McDonalds, got something cool to drink and got on the internet. As we were sitting there, I looked out the window and right across the parking lot was this nice looking motel with flowers all over the place, so we decided to check it out. Well, we did not check well enough as the rooms were older and definitely needed remodelling but that was not the issue. The couple
that owned it, were telling my husband how the economy in their city had gone for bust and their business was suffering. That is one of the reasons we stayed there as we felt they could use the money. However, as the evening wore on (it was Saturday night), my husband went out to the motorcycle to do something and when he came back into our room, he said, “There are drug deals going on in the room next door & I believe hookers as well.” Now, that was a little unnerving but God is faithful. As we are Canadians, we are a bit naive on guns etc. as our nation does not allow the freedom to carry guns like the US does. Also, we know the areas to stay away from in our city where we these kind of things take place. My husband went off to sleep as he had worn himself out on driving the motorcycle over the mountains. I start to pray and rebuke the stuff next door. After I had done all I knew to do, I went to sleep believing God would do the rest. Well, the next morning, they were gone, our bike had not been touched and neither had we! How faithful is our God? We ask and He does!

“He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.” (Psalm 121:3-8 ESV)

This is a scripture that I would pray every day over my precious nephew when he was in Afghanistan outside the wire fighting in gun battles! He did two tours and came home without any
physical injuries. Of course he has war wounds which I am praying and believing God will heal.
This is how amazing God is!

God is so awesome!

As I have seen the power of prayer in my life, I want to be able to share how awesome God is!
Even in His word, He says, “We have not, because we ask not.”

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.
You do not have, because you do not ask. (James 4:2 ESV)

We seem to think that He only cares about the big things in our lives, when He cares about every little detail and we need to learn to trust Him with that. I have a wonderful friend from St. Vincent that has taught me about the “little” things”, to ask and receive.
My husband and I just returned home to Canada after a 24 day trip on our motorcycle touring around the western US. (That in itself is a miracle) From the time we left, until the time we returned we could see God’s hand going before us in the simple aspects of just every day travel. My husband and I pray over our day before we ever move outside the door as we know there is an enemy who is working hard to take us out any way he can.
On the second day of our journey we started to encounter some high temperatures – 100 degrees and upward as we traveled through vineyards and orchards. For some reason, I was having real difficulty dealing with this heat and as we were in the middle of nowhere, I was asking God for an oasis in the middle of the desert where we could get something cold to drink and some air conditioning. It was so extreme, that I thought I was going to get sick as my stomach kept wanting to throw up. I have no idea if it was just because we had eaten about a half hour before or if it was the heat but I kept rebuking it and it finally passed. Not long after I asked for the oasis, we drove up on this small town where there was a McDonald’s attached to a service station. Haven’t seen many of those but it was an oasis so we stopped. After many glasses of ice water, sitting in some air conditioning (just like I asked), and washing my face with some cold water, we started off again. It did not take long to become overheated again and I kept praying for the strength to make it to the city we planned to stay at for the night. God came through as He always does and once we found that room and some air conditioning, I showered and hid. That is just the beginning of prayer for “little things” and God coming through.