The Lord is good. Always good. He’s blessed me in so many ways: a loving wife, a comfortable home, health, precious time with my elderly parents before He took them home. For a lifetime, God has listened to my prayers and continues to demonstrate His loving kindness towards me and all those I’ve lifted up over the years. And as often as I’ve accused Him of not acting fast enough on my prayers, He’s even been patient with my impatience.

Though I am cognizant of all these things, sometimes it’s the little things that remind me of just how wonderful God is; how closely He watches over and protects me.

Karen and I went shopping about an hour from where we live. We visited several home goods stores to find accessories to decorate our living room. A few days before, we jumped in the truck to go grocery shopping and found the battery was dead, so we took the car. As soon as we got home with the groceries, I put the battery charger on the truck and gave it a full charge. “Must’ve left the lights on” I reasoned and assumed everything would be OK.

Parked in front of Michael’s where Karen was shopping for some kind of ribbon I’d never heard of, “grow grain” she called it, I sat in the truck to read and played solitaire games on my phone. I let the engine idle while running the heater and turned it off when it began to get too warm.

Moments later when I tried to re-start the truck, the battery was completely dead again.

While Karen continued to shop, I used the phone to find the closest auto parts store and called them to inquire about batteries. Sadly, the manager said they could neither bring me one, nor would they drive me back to the truck if I were to walk to the store and buy one. The next closest auto parts store was 6 miles away, farther than I cared to walk in cold weather.

So I called the AAA. We’d been members for years, but have never used them. The AAA operator said the wait time on a tow truck for “jumper service” was minimally 2 hours. Reluctantly I arranged the appointment and started scanning the parking lot and strip mall for a restaurant where we could hang out while we waited. There was no restaurant in the area and without heat, it was too cold to wait in the truck.

About the time I began to grumble, I spotted a “Car Toys” store in the same strip mall as Michael’s, about 150 feet from where the truck was parked. By that time, Karen was done shopping and we hoofed it down to Car Toys to see whether they sold batteries. Not only did they sell them, they were the same good brand that was in the truck already and had seen us through 8 frigid Illinois winters before finally failing. There was also a mechanic on duty who was only too glad to walk me back to the truck, carrying the battery where he tested the old one, confirmed it was bad and installed the new one for me.

In less than 30 minutes, we were on the road again and I called the AAA and canceled.

Michael’s was the 3rd stop we made that day. Had the truck battery failed when we were en-route to the shopping center, or any of the previous stops, we’d have had no choice but to wait the 2 hours for AAA to show up. But God’s grace in delaying the battery failure, until we were within 50 yards of someone who could repair it for us, filled us with appreciation for the many many ways God watches over us and provides for our welfare before we even know that we need His help.

Even today I saw his goodness while out mowing the property for the first time (this season). The mower ran out of gas far from the machine shed. Dreading the long walk to the shed and back with a heavy fuel can, the Spirit pointed out that it was down hill and I could simply coast on the mower, in neutral, down to where the fuel is. Filled with joy I laughed and said “I’ll take that as your vote for the next podcast episode.”

And so today, I am simply giving thanks for our God, who watches over us, all day, every day.

As it says in Psalm 121 verse 8:

The Lord will protect you on your journeys
whether going or coming
from now until forever from now.

God is good!