An Awesome God

In the summer of 1993 B.C (...that's Before Christ for me) I was sitting in the Cracker Barrel parking lot at Billy Graham Parkway and I-85. I had been speaking with my boss on a first generation car phone. One that had a battery like an ammo can sitting between the seats. My job was working as the logistics manager for an asphalt paving company and I had just been given the news that I had to move all of the equipment we had just placed at a job site to another one across town. I really detested it when someone else meddled with field operations so I was a bit upset, to say the least. I stabbed the off button on the phone and was sitting there watching the traffic flow on the interstate fuming when it rang in my hand.
I stabbed the green button and barked "hello" into the phone, thinking it was my boss again. A voice I recognized, all too well, said "Keith, this is Larry". My attorney. I can think of very few times in my life when a call from one's attorney is good. This one didn't disappoint the theory.
I had gotten a drunk driving charge almost two years prior to this, been convicted and we had been bobbing and weaving within the system for eighteen months trying to keep me out of jail. He was informing me that my time, options and appeals had run out. I was either going to have to pay a fine of $1,500.00 (U.S., CASH) or I was going to jail, that simple. The fine had to be paid by 5p.m. that afternoon or I had to turn myself in. Fifteen hundred may not seem like a lot now...but in those days it represented almost a months net wages for me. We pretty much lived paycheck to paycheck anyway so that would mean taking a chunk of food off the table....if it were even close to payday, which it wasn't. Short story..no savings..no money. I was going to jail.
When I said B.C for me....it was the truth. I was not a big fan of God. Life had been rough and though I was fully aware of God and never for a second considered that He wasn't there, all powerful or hadn't made all that was...I didn't like Him. Kind of like the Big Boss....covers your check each week but doesn't really know you or care about you and would just as soon get the job done without you if he had his way. The few encounters I had had in my life with church had left a nasty taste in my mouth. God, and church, was for cripples. Religion was a crutch. This is a bootstrap world we live in and we are in it on our own. He might have made it, but it was like the discarded tree house out in the back yard after the little ones have grown up... a nice piece of work, but of little value now.
The flip side of this situation was that my boss (not the Big Boss noted above) was a pretty decent guy. I was working as a super on a job site he was paving a few months earlier. He approached me and offered me a job running his asphalt paving crew. He also had an Amway distribution business on the side and I think I fit their "sharp person" profile, hence the job offer. I took it...both of them actually, as he and his wife started mentoring me and mine into this sudo-Christian atmosphere of Amway. We had attended church with him a few times and a prayer session preceded each of the business meetings. I had, however, yet to "get it".
I always felt a bit hypocritical about these sessions because my own thoughts still centered around the Big Boss Theory. I am an avid reader though. I was reading a lot of the stuff they were throwing down. Some of it, like the bible, was starting to make sense....on Sunday morning....after some really moving worship where the "feel good" ripples were weaving and waving over all. But come Monday in the real world I was back on the Big Boss's Timeclock. Bootstrap bully.
So with the ridiculous jingle of "you're going to jaaiil, you're going to jaaiil....!!" ringing in my ears I threw out a surly "well there's a fine one for you....gee God, what're you gonna do about that?!!!" My first prayer in life ever spoken audibly was "if you really exist God...fix this!" and that not kindly spoken, I might add.
I sat for several minutes watching the traffic flow...thinking how I might meld into it and just head farther south for a bit. It was coming on fall and I had already lived up north far longer than I wanted....south sounded pretty good. I have some renegade family on the gulf.
I had been in tougher spots than this...had actually been in jail before, but the prospect of three years of it was pretty daunting. North Carolina was just then setting the pace for these sorts of things and it was pretty definite my world was gonna get real small, real soon.
I was also thinking about how I was going to break this wonderful news to my wife. She had seen me through a lot in the preceding few years and had been great, but she was tired of it. Real tired of it. I didn't really have much hope in her being around after I got out.
So after about ten minutes... with all that rolling around in my mind, like a sick stomach on a high sea, not really knowing what I had expected to happen, I said out loud, "there you go God, that's about what I thought!".
At that moment. At that very precise moment. As those words were still echoing off the windshield...my phone rang again. I looked at it for several seconds as it rang, thinking "you gotta be kidding me, what's the point in answering that thing now? It ain't like it's gonna be God on the other end".
But, even though my freedom was but for a few more minutes...I've always had a dedication to the job. My philosophy is, "Ride for the Brand, as long as you're on the clock, you're on the job". So I answered the flipping phone.
No, it wasn't God...it was my boss's brother, our bookkeeper.
Wayne was a gentle soul and as I look back on it, the driving force behind the spiritual side of the business and personal dealings. We weren't really friends. I actually looked upon him as a kind of pansy because of his spiritual bent. He was always saying things like..."you gotta have faith", "God is good, all the time" and "thank you Jesus" and it generally turned my stomach. I hadn't ever put him down for it...but I never really took him serious either. I can remember, and count on one hand, the number of times that we had ever actually spoken directly to each other.
I answered the phone and asked him what he needed. He stated nothing really, and that he had just been sitting at his desk going over some books when the thought of me popped into his head. He said he didn't know why but he felt compelled to call me to see what I was up to. I said, "gee Wayne, that's really kinda funny 'cause at this particular moment I'm up to my a** in alligators!"
Not knowing precisely what I was referring to he parted with a casual "don't worry Keith, God is great all the time, and whatever this is will be behind you by tomorrow". I told him I didn't think that was likely this time around. He asked me why I thought that was so. Knowing that I wouldn't be employed with them but for a short time more, I proceeded to tell him my predicament. Something I hadn't revealed prior to this. Nobody knew about the DWI and subsequent challenges with the courts. Remember, bootstrap mentality. So I told him I was going to jail at 5 that afternoon because I couldn't come up with the money. He asked me how much the fine was. I told him.
There was a very long pause.
So long I thought the connection might have been broken. I asked if he was still there and he responded, "yea, but I gotta tell you this is pretty crazy." I said, "do tell Wayne, I appreciate the call, but I gotta go see my wife. I can't spill this to her on the phone and I don't want to leave your company truck sitting in the jail parking lot either...wouldn't look good for you guys."
He said, "no, you don't get it Keith, I'm sitting here listening to you talk and doodling on the margins of a savings account bank statement. It's what I've called my pocket change account. Each day I empty the change out of my pockets and put it in a jar...at the end of the month I take the jar to the bank with the other receipts and put it into a specific savings account. This is a rainy day account I've been working on for about five years now and it's outside of anything I need. As you were telling me how much you needed to stay out of jail, I was doodling circles around the account balance.....fourteen hundred and ninety five dollars. I've got...uh..(rustle, rustle)....a five spot in my pocket. How much time you got, and where do we need to be?"
I said, "you're kidding right?" He said, "nope, where can I meet you?" I looked at my watch....3:45p.m., the money had to be at the court house by 5.
We walked back out of the court house doors at 4:55. He looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, smiled and walked away singing, "Our God is an Awesome God, He reigns from Heaven above...!!!"
Me, I was thinking, "I wonder if The Big Boss has got a bag phone up there?"

Now, I won't profess to know the mind of God. It might very well be said that He would have found another way to reach me. From my perspective, however, I choose to believe that God used that situation to trick me (heh, heh!) into loving Him.
Maybe, if Wayne hadn't listened to that still, small voice...Maybe, if he hadn't had the exact amount of money needed...Maybe, if I hadn't heard the "knock"...
I might not be sitting here at my computer keyboard, 16 years later, still trusting Him, whistling to the tune of "Our God is an Awesome God...!!"
But I am!