Page 72 - Evidence of Things Unseen

It wasn’t long before God honored our attitude of thankfulness. We had not told
anyone of our situation, when a man I had worked with at the hospital called us and said
that he had a freezer full of deer meat he needed to get rid of. He asked if we would like the
meat. Not only does my family enjoy deer meat, but it is perhaps our favorite type of meat.
This man and his wife brought over a huge cooler full of deer steaks, deer roast, deer
sausage, and ground deer meat and they completely filled up a freezer we kept at the back
of our house. We ate off of that meat for weeks, and it was absolutely delicious. I made some
deer jerky out of one of the roasts that my children still talk about to this day.
There was no doubt in my mind that God was testing us as He had done the Israelites,
and I was determined to pass the tests brought to us. We saw many incredible provisions
at this time, and were becoming accustomed to seeing the hand of God moving on our
behalf, yet I was still unable to pay my major bills. I had much dread in my heart about what
God should make me walk through, and I cried out often for His hand of provision. But like
David when he cried out for the life of his son to be spared after his sin with Bathsheba, God
would not relent of His judgment and correction. A day came in September of 2000 when
we were all in the house doing various things when the power was cut off. I knew the city
had cut off the electricity because I had been unable to pay the power bill.
My wife and kids came into the room and asked what we should do. I told my wife to
call our friends’ Randy and Barbara Barnes and see if they could go stay with them for a
while, for they had previously made such an offer. Tony called, and they were invited to
come on out, though I decided to stay at home with our two dogs. This arrangement would
give me time alone to pray and seek God’s face.
Despite our predicament, I was observing signs of God’s working in my life in so many
ways that it was hard to doubt that we were walking according to the path God had set
before us. When I had begun going through tests of faith, and was being buffeted by fear,
anxiety and worry, I considered that my greatest enemy was fear. I was reminded of the
account of Yahshua and His disciples crossing the Sea of Galilee in a boat when a fierce
storm came up. We are told that Yahshua was sleeping on a cushion in the boat while the
disciples were becoming more and more alarmed. Things looked so desperate to them that
they thought they would sink and surely perish, so they woke up the Lord and said, “Do you
not care that we are perishing?” Yahshua was not alarmed at all, but spoke to the wind and
the sea to be calm and it was immediately calm. He then chided the disciples for their
unbelief.
I was captivated by this true story, and I told the Lord that I wanted to have the kind
of peace that Yahshua had, for if I had peace then I could go through any circumstance and
it would not trouble me. When I prayed these words to God, He answered me clearly and
said, “I can give you this peace, but I will have to take you through some storms to get you
there.”
The date that our power was cut off I was home alone, except for our two dogs, and
I slept in a recliner in our front room next to the door so that I could get a breeze from
outside. September in Georgia is often very hot, and it was so at this time. That night a
terrific thunder storm came up, and it was perhaps the worst one I had ever witnessed up
till then. We had a very wide covered front porch that extended out about ten feet from the
front of the house, but the wind blew so hard that rain was coming into the front room
where I was sitting. Lightning was striking furiously all around, and a tree right across the
road split in two due to the wind and fell into the road, blocking traffic.
The storm was horrendous, and it matched the storm that was raging in my soul, for