Against all odds, it came

The strangest things happen to the most normal everyday people.

For the last few months, God's absolutely been burning on my heart to do a run of teachings called 'Right Living'. I didn't even know exactly what they would be about or how it would happen, but tonight the very first part of what I believe will be an ongoing subject, raised its head in Ignite (the local youth church / Bible study / Worship meeting). AKA 'The Youth Group' on Wednesday nights.

The thing is, so many things tried to get in the way of this simple little sermon-ette ever making it to the halls of Elim in Keynsham.

The few things I can be bothered to lament here, are the disk error and the foot.

I took a floppy disk to work to save my file onto, because yesterday they stopped the internet working on my PC. It got stuck in the A drive and I had to use a small screwdriver to poke the button and get it out. That was the only copy of the piece I'd written. The PC also didn't have MS word, but luckily I was able to read the file on word reader, and then edit it in wordpad, and save as an RTF file.

When I finally got home tonight, just before the time to speak had come, I stuck the disk into my computer, and tried reading it.

It would not read. It was utterly broken and would not work at all. Much whirring and panicing ensued. I then got on the phone to the office, and ONE GUY was left working there. This was about 7pm. Office hours officially end at 5:30pm.

They never usually answer the phone after the receptionist has left, I noticed recently, too. But Paul at work collected my frantic call. I explained that I needed this file off my pc but that the PC couldn't go on the net. He said he would copy it across the network to his pc at work, then email it to me at home (I'd left a copy on my hard drive at work).

Anyway, the short version is that Paul's email did arrive just in time, with the file intact. Hurrah! Only ... minutes earlier I suddenly felt a conviction spread over me.

Why not PRAY for the disk? I'd seen it done before after all; I once prayed for a lap top internet connection and it started to work again. My faith rose inside of me to believe as I prayed, so I pointed to the disk in the drive and said, 'Disk, in Jesus' name, you work.' Or words very close to that effect.

I then tried the disk again. It worked. The files on it appeared on screen. I immediately opened the file I wanted and then re saved it to my hard drive here at home. Which is also a semi miracle since just yeasterday both my C and D drives started screaming at me for space and I realised I only had a few hundred megs free on both drives. Ouch.

But it wasn't over yet. The printer now refused to print. Error messages popped up. I tried things but it was useless. So in desperation I got on the phone to my Dad who lives down the road and has email and a printer. I told him I didn't have time to explain it all but I needed to email him a file, and for him to print it and drive it straight down to my house. This was ten minutes or less before I was due to speak at the church across the street from me.

He agreed to help. I sent the file and waited. A few minutes later and the doorbell jangled out. Racing to the door, I was greeted by four copies of the sermon on paper.

Grateful, I raced off to Ignite with the papers.

God blessed me with a fantastic worship time & the talk seemed to go down well. At the end I was able to give away all four copies of the talk to people who wanted copies, which I also didn't expect.

Just before I got up to give the talk, I am not kidding; my foot literally all of a sudden burst into pain, and it felt dislocated in the middle. It creased and hurt to stand or not flex it. And it was getting worse.

I hobbled up and sat on the stage, explaining that I would be sitting due to the pain. A guy who was there, Colin, remarked 'George?' I asked what.

'Be healed' was all he said. And I was. The pain just stopped. I started moving my foot again and it was fine. Moments earlier I couldn't move it without that horrible dislocation feeling. It didn't even have to 'crack' back into place.

You see ... if we honour God, He will honour us.

My sermon was just a talk. Nothing special. In fact you can read my unedited notes right here, at: http://www.melted.com/korner/personal/faith/rightliving.htm

But the enemy spent at least a day trying to stop this talk from reaching the ears of waiting minds that God would speak to.

Today, if you hear His voice? Don't harden your hearts.