The Parable of the Books

It all started last week, when Dustin ordered two of his school books for this semester online.  What with Christmas break and all, we forgot to order them earlier.  We realized that ordering books online only a week before school starts is risky, but our previous book orders had always come within a week. 

On Friday the 8th, only three days before classes began, we received one of the books in the mail. 

Except, it was the wrong book.

I don't know how someone managed to send "Criminology" instead of "Microeconomics," but it happened.  We emailed the seller and he promised to send us the right book ASAP.

Monday rolled around, with still no books.  But it was okay, because most teachers don't really expect their students to have their books on the first day.  Dustin's teachers instructed everyone to have their books by Wednesday at the latest.

Tuesday night came...still no books.  Dustin went to school on Wednesday again with no books, but he was not the only one in his classes, so he was still okay.  However, his teachers were adamant this time:  Have the books by Friday's class!

On Wednesday night, with still no books on our front doorstep, we decided to track Dustin's Spanish book with the tracking number provided by the seller.  When we plugged it into the USPS website, however, couldn't find any package with that number in its system.  The package seemed to be lost.

At this point, things were looking bad.  Dustin had no books, no way of seeing if his books were on the way, and no way to contact the book sellers to cancel our order.  We were convinced the books probably wouldn't come by the next day, Thursday.  Dustin didn't want to buy the books at the bookstore on campus because we had already paid for them once.  He was really pretty upset with the situation.  So, we prayed about it.  I received an answer that seemed like a solution:  Buy the books from the campus bookstore, and then sell them back when the books arrived in the mail. 

This morning, Thursday, Dustin raced to the bookstore between his classes to buy the needed books (I was at work).  He learned two things: 1. The bookstore was only letting students sell back books till Friday (tomorrow) 2. The books he needed were out of stock.  And then he was late to his second class because of the long lines in the store.  At this point, Dustin threw his hands in the air.  He was sick of worrying about it. 

He texted me: "I've done all I can to get the book and haven't been able to, so either the teacher will understand or God would rather that i just don't have the book right now."  We both decided that we were either being punished for not buying the books earlier, or there must be some reason behind the lack of books.  We finally acknowledged that it was in God's hands after all.

And then Dustin came home from class, and there in our mailbox were both  of the books he needed. 

The books we "knew" wouldn't come on time.

God had heard our prayers from the beginning! 

I wonder how often in life things end up this way.  Something happens, little or small, our fault or not, and we just don't know how to solve it.  We get angry, upset.  We pray that everything will work out, but don't have the faith to believe that it will  work out.  We don't realize that God already has everything taken care of. (He knew the books would come in time.  But we didn't believe it.)  So we pray for something we can do to fix it ourselves.  He gives us another solution, like he's trying to make us feel better about life.  But it doesn't work out, so finally we are forced to accept that it is, after all, "God's will be done".  And then lo and behold, He answers our prayers perfectly.  God does take care of his children.  Dustin and I finally just had to accept that things weren't working out the way we wanted, and realize that the situation was in God's hands.  And after we finally, grudgingly, gave up trying to run our own lives, God stepped in, like He promised He always would if we are faithful.  He loves us, even when our faith is lacking.

Sometimes, there are specific things God wants us to do.  And other times, He wants us to just sit back and realize that there's nothing we can do, and put our trust in Him that things will work out anyway.   

Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thy own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths."