Welcome to our series You're Not Alone, in which Allen Sonter, for many years a missionary educator in the islands of the South Pacific, tell stories that help us to know that God is always watching over us wherever we are.
This episode is entitled God Knows Best. This story happened in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1980.
My wife and I were trying to raise finance to buy our first home, so we decided that we could raise a few thousand dollars by selling our near new car and buying an old model. I used to hate buying cars, especially used ones as I remembered all those horror stories in the news about how people were taken in by sharp operators. So when we decided to change cars, I especially asked God to show us which car we should buy.
Within a week or so, we had a buyer of our $8,000 car and were looking for a used vehicle that would cost around $3,000. I searched through the newspapers every day and marked ads that looked promising. We went to see several cars, but somehow none seemed to be just what we had in mind.
Something seemed to make a negative impression on my mind about every one of them. Then one day I phoned a person with the car for sale and he promised to bring it around in the late afternoon for us to see. Apparently, he was driving down country and would bring the car in on his way home.
The time came for the car to arrive, but it didn't show up. Time passed until just as it began to get dark a white car with a black vinyl roof pulled up in our driveway. It was an Austin 1300 GT, but I couldn't distinguish much detail in the semidarkness.
The owner was apologetic about being late but had been held up on his way back to town. Despite the poor visibility. Something seemed to say to me this is the car you should buy.
So I said to the owner, I think the car is what I'm looking for. I'll come around to your place in the morning and check it out carefully. If there are no problems, we'll talk about a price.
The next morning, my wife and I drove across town to the address we had been given and I took the car for a drive. I was fairly gentle with it, but checked out the CV joints on full lock and did the usual things that could be expected to show up. Any problems? The paint work wasn't real good, but there were no signs of rust.
Since everything seemed to be all right, I offered the owner $3,000 for the car. Even though his advertised price had been 3400, he readily accepted my offer. I wrote him out a check, got his signature on the chains of ownership form and while my wife drove the car we were selling, I took possession of our new purchase and started off for home.
After a kilometer or two I decided to see what power the car had. So put my right foot down rather firmly the car surged forward. Impressively.
But at the same time a queer swaying motion gave me a real scare. Something was seriously wrong somewhere. But where? I eased off the power and the feel of the car returned to normal power again.
There was that sickening swaying. I felt anxiety rising inside me. Had I been misled into buying serious trouble? Had the owner been so eager to accept my offer because he knew there was trouble and just wanted to get rid of the car? I drove the car to the workshop of a mechanic friend Colin and as calmly as I could asked him to check the car out.
I explained the unusual symptoms and he put the car on the hoist and checked underneath very carefully. Colin couldn't find anything that might explain the unusual swaying so he lowered the car and we went for a drive. As soon as he applied power swaying motion showed up again.
There's certainly something really wrong there. Colin exclaimed. I wonder what it can be.
We took the car back to the workshop and Colin again put the car on the hoist. He pulled and tugged at any parts that he thought might be causing the trouble but still nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. There's really nothing I can do, he concluded until we can find out what's causing that queer motion.
I was feeling quite worried as I drove the car home. No matter how hard I tried not to worry by that evening my anxiety level was well above what was healthy. As I knelt by my bed to pray that night I said to God I asked you to show me what car to buy and it seems you impressed me to buy this Austin.
Now there seems to be a real problem and I can't stop worrying. Even though I try I still believe you guided my decision. So would you please take away my anxiety and give me peace of mind? Help me to trust you that you have everything under control.
Instantly my anxiety vanished and never returned. I thanked God for giving me peace of mind and went quickly to sleep and slept soundly all night. In the morning I decided to change the engine oil in the Austin.
It looked as though it hadn't been changed for some time as it appeared almost black on the dipstick. I jacked up the front, supported the body on blocks and squeezed under to find the drain plug. Now this Austin 1300 was one of those front wheel drive models with a cross mounted engine and the inner universal joints on the drive shafts were right in behind the gearbox which doubled as the sump.
As I looked up to find the sump drain I caught sight of the left hand universal and in an instant the mystery of the swaying motion under acceleration was solved. Two Ubolts were designed to hold the centerpiece of the Universal to the drive shaft but one of them had broken off so that it was a Jbolt rather than a Ubolt. It was so far up that it had escaped notice during the inspection the previous day when lightly loaded the Universal acted fairly normally but under heavy acceleration it twisted alarmingly producing that queer swaying motion.
I changed the engine oil and then arranged for Colin to fit a new Universal. Within a day or two the job was done and that car turned out to be a real winner. As I mentioned in passing earlier, it was a model and it had twin carburetors and extractor exhausts.
Someone had planed the head and the compression was really high. I had the engine tuned and the mechanic who did the job road tested the car and was enthusiastic about its performance. It goes like a rocket, he said.
I believe the Lord knew I liked a bit of power so he had impressed me. To buy this car I had to be careful on takeoff not to be too sudden with the accelerator or the engine would ping but just follow through as the revs built up and the performance was quite startling, I suppose there are three points I would like to make from this story. The first is that when we need to make a decision and we ask God to guide our minds he can impress us with what to do.
The second is that if we become worried god can give us peace of mind when we ask Him to. Thirdly, because God loves us so much and knows us so well he does more than help us simply exist. He leads us in ways that he knows will give us a bit of excitement as well.
So far in these stories I've emphasized the fact that we are not alone. That's why the collection has the name that it does. But when we realize we're not alone we should make some sort of response to this God who is always there.
He loves us so it makes Him happy when we respond by wanting to know Him. As we get to know Him through reading the Bible and through talking to Him in prayer we will find that in the Bible he gives us quite a bit of information about how to live a life of peace, joy and happiness. If we follow God's way of living he can help us even more so our relationship with Him grows closer.
I invite you to learn to know Him and trust Him for yourself.
You've been listening to our series You're Not Alone stories told by Allen Sonter that help us to know that God is always watching over us, wherever we are. If you have any comments or questions, send an email to
[email protected] or give us a call within Australia on zero two four nine seven, three three four five.
Six. May God bless you and remember you are not alone. You have been listening to a production of Three ABN Australia australia Radio.
