At a Loss for Words
Acts 9:7 – The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.
After 146 posts, I was talking to my girlfriend and telling her that I have no clue what I am going to write about. I am truly at a loss for words.
Then my daughter called me and told me what has been going on with her ankle. She sprained it during practice but was lying to the coach with hopes that she would be allowed to play. But the coach caught her in the lie. So she had to explain coaches why she had lied and what the lie was about.
When I found out, I was at a loss for words.
I was actually speechless.
That got me thinking, what other moments have I been speechless in the course of the past year?
Anyone who knows me knows that usually I will have something to say about anything. Rarely does the cat get my tongue as God has gifted me with the knowledge of Cliff Claven from Cheers. All sorts of useless pieces of information, some of it urban legend others of it remarkably insightful, all of it unnecessary.
But there have been several times in the past year that I have found myself without words.
A little over a year ago, I was the victim of a bait and switch mortgage. I was approved for a mortgage and at the last minute it was pulled out from under me and I had to go with a much higher mortgage. It was definitely one of those last minute deals because I had already given my notice to my landlord, he had another tenant ready to move in, I had the truck rented to move, and everyone had taken off work or made themselves available to help.
Then I lost the mortgage.
1 Corinthians 14:33 – For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.
For a long time, I was speechless. You can ask my girlfriend. I was not a pleasant person to be around at that time.
Another time I found myself speechless was when I first started my recruiting business. I did everything by the book. I set up a business plan that, I believed, was fairly easily attainable and I started doing everything as the franchise organization laid out for me step by step. You see, in order to be at my old salary, I need to place 2.5 people per month average. Doesn’t seem like a lot until you see what kind of folks submit resumes. They aren’t all the cream of the crop. 98% of the resumes I receive are the chaff that just needs to blow away. Or better yet, burn up in glorious form. I found myself the first 10 weeks of recruiting without any hires. I had a lot of interviews happening, but no hires. It was a very rough start, especially since I somewhat undercapitalized my business to begin with (yea, those of you who are business people, please don’t tell me right now that the majority of business fail because of being undercapitalized at the start-up phase, I get that now).
But after almost 3 months, I was speechless.
I was doing everything right.
Why was this happening?
I started this business because I wanted to be home a lot more so I could focus on the ministry, spend more time with my kids, and build a relationship with Mimi.
Putting the first 2 stories together alone made me speechless. I was failing in business and had nothing left to fall back on. This could be a very devastating thing.
But then story number 3 left me the most speechless of all.
James 1:17 – Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
It is August 2014 and I have 3 very large bills looming in the near future. I’ve blown through all the money from my past hires to keep the business afloat and pay the bills to this point. I have over $4,000 in bills to pay at the end of August and $1,200 in the bank combined between the business account and the personal account.
I’ve made it to this point, only by the grace of God. But I seriously was not sure if I could keep this going any longer.
Then it happened.
I received a couple of checks that I never expected to receive. And I was able to free up some money to fund my business for another 4-5 months.
With the momentum in my business right now, it should be able to make money consistently by the end of September.
But I learned something very important here.
I had nothing to do with that money coming in.
Nothing.
It is only by the grace of God that the money came when it did. Anyone reading this can sit there and quietly say to themselves, “yea, Fred, that is simply a coincidence.” And in the world’s eyes, you would be right. But The Bible teaches me something very different. It teaches me that what the world deems as foolishness is really wisdom.
So when I look at money, and my future, I may never be a millionaire or even be able to retire. That was something I desired long ago. But all I want to do is worship my God. A very big God who can make the sun stand still long enough to get all the bills paid.
A very big God who will always provide my needs.
And it is because of that very big God that I am constantly without words.
John 20:30 – Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book
boyradd 