Fear Not
God Provides Through Christian Community
By Richard Gelina
“Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God
I will strengthen you, I will help you
I will uphold you with my righteous hand.”
—Isaiah 41:10
I-95, Springfield Interchange, Washington, D.C.
The cars zipped by endlessly in both directions—like two never-ending high speed trains with me stuck between the tracks. I was stranded. My relatively new car had emitted some strange sounds, shuffled off this mortal distributor coil, and gone to join the commuter fleet invisible. But I wasn't thinking in a poetic vein at the time. I was just wishing that someone with a cell phone would be kind enough to stop and let me call my wife and a towing service.
As the cars continued to pass, passengers faces gawking out the side windows, I began to get angry. Surely, I thought, someone could take a couple of minutes out of their commute to help a stranded motorist! But for the next 30 minutes the cars continued to zip past, the faces continued to gawk, and my anger continued to rise.
Then I realized how inappropriate my anger was. As a follower of Christ, I am called to be a servant—not to be served. Leaning against the cement barrier separating the HOV lanes from the main lanes, I bowed my head and asked God's forgiveness. I prayed that God would send a police officer or a VDOT motorist assistant to help me.
I know that God answers prayer, but I also continue to expect God to
answer prayer in the way I have envisioned the answer. God doesn't tend
to do that. In fact, the Apostle Paul told the Ephesians that God “is
able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians
3:20). And that was what God had in mind for me two weeks ago.
Within a minute, a truck with flashing yellow lights pulled to the side
of the main lanes. I hopped over the dividing wall and explained the
problem to the driver (who, as it turned out, was a fellow Christian and
a member of Bethel Freewill Baptist Church in Springfield, Va.). He
backed his truck up, entered the HOV lanes, parked his truck behind my
car to protect my car from the traffic, and used his radio to call for
towing. As he was doing this another car pulled to the side of the road
in front of mine. My brother in Christ and fellow member at Occoquan
Bible Church got out of the car and came back to meet me. He assured me
that we would get whatever help was needed and that he would make sure
that I arrived safely home when it was done. Dave then called his
brother, who lives there in the area, to ask if I could have my car
towed to his house until I was able to make arrangements to have it
fixed. Then he waited for more than an hour for the tow truck to arrive.
Dave Ross
When we got to Dave’s brother's house, I attempted to pay for the towing and the tow truck driver said that it had already been taken care of. Dave refused to accept payment for this saying that God had laid it on his heart to help out in this way. He then drove me well past his house, dropped me off at my house, and finally went home—much later than he would have gotten home normally.
God had provided well. And although I was very grateful to God and to Dave Ross, God was not finished yet. I still needed to get my car fixed and really didn't know where the funds for that would come from. I sent an email to the people of OBC asking for a mechanically-inclined person to help me figure out what the problem was. Again, God answered prayer differently than I was expecting.
My father-in-law had just purchased a new truck and offered to let me use his old truck to get to work. The 200,000+ miles on this truck meant that I couldn't use it to commute every day for a long time, but it would get me through the interim while my car was immobile. Then over the next couple of days I heard from many people at OBC. Each of whom offered me a car to use indefinitely. One of the church elders even offered to fix one of his cars and then give it to me or to fix the car, sell it, and then give me the money he got for the car. The congregation's generosity was overwhelming. Because God had provided the truck through my father-in-law, I thanked each person and told them that God had already provided.
Again, I thought God had answered my prayer way beyond anything I had ever asked or thought. But he was still not finished yet.
I had my car towed to a repair shop recommended by one of the OBC members. It was repaired, but now I had to pick it up by Saturday, and I just didn't have the money to pay for the repairs. My wife and I discussed our finances and figured out some creative ways to come up with the money, but it would take us almost two months to do so. On Friday night I decided that I had to ask for some more assistance. I hated to do this, but couldn't see another way around this problem.
I tried to get in touch with OBC’s Benevolence Committee to see if we could borrow the money and pay it back over the next couple of months. I didn't reach any of the members of that committee. About 10 minutes after I stopped trying to reach those three people, and even though I had not left a message on any of their machines, one of them called me. He told me that they wanted to give me the money to get my car fixed. They knew that we were in a bind and felt that the church should help us out of this bind.
I sat on my end of the phone dumbstruck. The thought “I don't deserve this” washed over me like a flood. I offered to pay it back and was told that this was to be a gift. When I got off the phone, numb from the incredible generosity and love shown by God and the people of OBC, I realized this is what it's all about. No, I don't deserve this. But then, none of us deserve God's love. It is given freely and unconditionally because of who God is.
What an amazing God we serve! And what a wonderful community of believers we have a Occoquan Bible Church. I could never repay what has been given to me. But that is what Paul said in Romans 11:34–36:
For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.