So before I continue with the story, I think that you shoud know that when I started part 1 of this little series I had no idea that this whole wallet situation was going to happen. I was actually going to share another recent dream that had (and continues to have) a huge impact on my life. I chose to talk about this dream and the wallet situation because this was so fresh and so relevant to our little discussion here. I should also let you know that the Lord has been dealing with me about the importance of a solid prayer life. And, of course, when the Lord wants to begin to teach you something, the enemy is always there to fight against that. I have been having an extremely difficult time praying and studying. I know we all struggle because our flesh doesn't wanna pray or read...and we have that struggle everyday. But this is not that. I feel that there is some extra hindrance there. So when I tell you the rest of this story, please understand that God in His sovereignty is trying to teach me the importance of prayer. I'm no prayer warrior...although I'd like to be. With that being said, let's get back to the situation.
I was in the car having a breakdown. The Lord told me that someone had my wallet (and for those of you who thought that the someone was me, it wasn't lol!) When the Lord told me that someone had my wallet, I asked the Lord to "crush" whoever had it. Mind you, I was pretty frustrated when I prayed the prayer. To my knowledge, this wasn't a "righteous" indignation. It was a "someone-has-my-wallet-so-I-hope-they-get-what-they-deserve" indignation. After I said that I figured, "No use complaining. What's done is done. Let me start cancelling cards and hope that there are no crazy charges to my account." I drove back to the church, and posted on Facebook that I lost my wallet and that I was now cancelling cards. You all saw it. You all showed sympathy. I thank you for that! When I got back to the church, I called a pastor friend of mine to tell him that I had to cancel my appointment with him because I didnt have a driver's license. We got to talking about a little bit of what we would've talked about had we kept the meeting. While I was on the phone with him, Faith (our receptionist/children's ministry extraodinaire) comes and tells me that there is a police officer on the phone for me. Now I received a call from a police officer last week. He wanted to rent the gym and I am the one that handles those requests. And because I didn't even make a police report about my wallet possibly being stolen, I just assumed it was the officer calling about gym rental. I asked Faith (yes, that's her real name) to forward the call to my voicemail. Thank the Lord she didn't. She instead asked my wife to take the call. I was still on the phone with the pastor when my wife came down. She told me to talk to her after I got off of the phone and said to me, "it's about your wallet." I thought she was just gonna encourage me to get the ball rolling on card cancellations and such. I'm a procrastinator.
After I finished my call, I went to go talk to my wife. Little did I know that the call was from a police officer who found 3 of my cards: my personal debit card, my business debit card, and a capital one mastercard. Now out of everything in my wallet, these were the things I was most concerned about. The police officer told my wife that he would come by the church and give me my cards. Crazy! But what's even crazier is how it all happened...
When the police officer came and dropped off my cards, he told me the story. He said that he was dispatched after the police station received a call from a cafe right up the street from the our church. He said that the cafe reported that there was a person sitting outside of the cafe that looked pretty sick. The officer who was dispatched happened to be a Christian. When the officer arrived at the scene, he asked the young man for some ID. When the young man gave the police officer the information, the officer pulled up some information on the man. Turns out the young man had warrants for his arrest. The officer then searched the man and, in searching his wallet, he found my cards! You're probably thinking, "How did he know to contact your church?" I told you earlier that this man was a Christian man, right. Well this same man went to a men's conference that my dad and I attended 2 years ago. When he saw the last name he told me that his thoughts were, "I wonder if this is the same Flowers that pastors Faith Outreach..." He pulls up the church information in his computer, calls the church, and ends up talking to Faith...who tried to tell me the officer was calling...etc. The young man who had my cards tried telling the officer that he just found the cards. The officer said that the young man was stoned on methodone and had weed in his pocket...so with that and the warrants, he ended up going to jail. When the officer pulls up, he's listening to KDRY 1100. Funny thing, I just did an interview taping on KDRY the day before. He told me that he remembered the church because he visited once and loved it lol! God is awesome.
Think about this! Had I not had that dream (and the confirmation of the God's voice), I wouldn't have randomly (and in my opinion quite fleshly) asked God for justice. And God in His sovereignty heard my request and brought justice to me. I still have take care of things like getting a new driver's license, etc. But you know what? After a miracle like that I have to believe that if God really wanted me to have my whole wallet back he would've given it to me. So as this relates to dreams, God doesn't do things haphazardly. God also cares about the little stuff...and will give you a dream to change the course of your life (like He did in my other dream) or to give you a simple word of knowledge about something seemingly insignificant. I might share the other dream with you sometime...much crazier than this story. I know this was pretty long. Thank you for reading.
Jarrell
Jarrell,
ReplyDeleteI was so blessed by your post. Isn't God awesome! Thank you for being transparent and honest with the readers. I've been right where you were in reference to the comment made about God's "righteous" indignation. It is a blessing to know that God knows our frames are of dust. His mercy is ___________! I'll let you fill in the blank.
- Your cousin in Louisiana.
Hey Margo! Yes, God is awesome! Love you.
ReplyDelete