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Stories of Faith for Inspiration and Proof that God can be Trusted Completely

Three months earlier we had moved to the island of Penang just off the Malaysian coast and south of Thailand.  I was finally settling into my two-year contract teaching high school science at the Dalat International School, and my wife and I decided to visit the the much-acclaimed Butterfly Farm.  They had 120 different species of butterflies flitting about sporting an incredible rainbow of colors.  There were thousands of them flying all around us in their enclosed world of tropical flowers and nectar.

After completing our visit there, we decided to continue on around the road that loops the island and find the Tropical Fruit Farm.  It will help to understand what traffic is like in Penang.  Cars go every which direction, and at the same time, there are hundreds of motorbikes also going every which direction. Like a relative of ours who’s lived here for a number of years said, “In Penang, road lines and traffic lights are merely suggestions.”  Traveling is a life-and-death endeavor; I was recently told that so many folks are killed on motorbikes that the police no longer keep track of the statistics.  Even the Malays that live here admit that traffic is bad!

So, we were very surprised when our GPS routed us up to a very nice four-lane highway that was nearly empty!  Following the road up into the mountain, we only saw a couple of motorbikes and couple of cars go by.  Traveling further up into the mountain, we decided our GPS was giving us false directions with the mountain coming between our GPS and the satellite signal.  Turning back started to seem like a wise idea.  We found a flat rocky area to turn around and headed back down the mountain in our very small Malaysian car.

Minutes later the car started bumping along, and my wife who was driving said, “Is the road rougher than it appears or do we have a flat?”  That was about the time I smelled the rubber.  She pulled over, I got out, and our front left tire was flat as a pancake!  While I was looking at the tire, three teenagers pulled up on their motorbikes and wanted to know if we needed help.  I assured them we were good, and it would only take me a few minutes to change the tire.  Besides, I didn’t know if they were there to hustle us, rob us, or whatever.  I kept trying to get them to  move on, but they just stayed … kinda laughing while they spoke to each other in Bahasa, the Malay language, and very broken English.   Still, I persisted in politely trying to get them to l-e-a-v-e!  Still smiling, they wouldn’t budge.

Then I started thinking, “Lord, is there some reason these guys need to be here?”  As soon as the prayer left my head, I discovered we didn’t have a jack or lug wrench! When we were buying the car a month before, I checked the spare, jack, and lug wrench–all were good.  Apparently, before we brought the car home, someone removed the jack and lug wrench!!  We had no AAA membership here and mechanic shops are tucked away among hundreds of other little shops.  But the one big teen kept repeating to us in broken English, “You rtree no gd, I cld mhs frnnd, h  ees say gud muh ka n tik!!”  Smiling we said, “What was that you said?”  Straining to understand after a couple more smiles and repeats, we got it–”Your tire is no good. I called my friend; he’s a good mechanic!”

Soon after, down the mountain below us we heard a revving motor and then saw a small sedan flying around the corner, swing past us at full speed, hit its brakes, slide sideways, peeling rubber with gray smoke billowing everywhere. The sedan makes the turn, aims at us, and then slams on its brakes right beside us, and out steps our smiling mechanic.   He pulled off the tire, and the inside sidewall had a hole the size of my fist.  I paid him, and gave the three teenage boys some money for their help, and all was said and done in less than thirty minutes!!  Talk about speedy roadside service!

On the way back down the mountain, I prayed, “Lord! Thank you for helping us once again!  Even when I didn’t think we needed help, You knew we did and had those boys stay.  And thank you that we didn’t have a wreck when the front tire blew a hole the size of my fist.  Thank you, Lord, our trust and confidence is in You, and You alone.  Amen from Penang.”

… I have had God’s help to this very day, and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike …        Acts 26:22

Copyright (c) 2011 by William D. (Nick) Nichols

The following true story happened to my wife and I when we moved back to the states from my Canadian college . . .

The only food we had was a dozen eggs.  The hungry hitchhiker ate ten of the eggs, leaving us with two.  That left my wife and me with one egg each.  Earlier that week on Thursday evening, we’d received a call from a friend who lived several hours away saying she and her husband were having some terrible marriage problems!  She wanted to know if we could come down and spend time talking with them.

My wife and I had just returned from living in Canada, purchased our first mobile home, I had enrolled in our local state university, and my wife had gotten a job all in our first week back from Canada.  All that activity left us with zero dollars!!  So when our friend called, we wanted to help but had no money for gas to go see them.  I prayed, “Lord, if you want us to go help them, then you’ll need to provide some money for gas.”

Friday, the next day, to my surprise I received a check in the mail for ten dollars from the IRS.  It had been sent to my previous New York college address; they eventually forwarded it to my parents, who sent it to my college address in Canada, where it got lost by the school, and didn’t get found until I was long gone from Canada, and I received it at our new address eight months later!  The money was late, but right on time to go help our friends!  Back then, ten dollars bought enough gas to drive down to our friends and back with no problem.

With a tank full of gas, we drove down that evening, spending the night with our friends and discussing their problem.  We spent Friday evening and most of Saturday listening and praying with them and then on Saturday evening we said our goodbyes.  On our way back to our home, we picked up three hitchhikers since in our old Ford van, we had plenty of room.  Later, I saw another hitchhiker and told him to jump in as well.  After an hour, the first three had gotten to where they wanted to go, so I dropped them off on the side of the road, leaving us with the lone hitchhiker.

In answer to the question of where the hitchhiker was planning to go, he said, “I’m headed out West and thought I would find a place to sleep in the weeds off the road on the west side of town.”  I told him we lived on the west side of town, and he could stay overnight with us, and then in the morning on my way to school I could drop him off at the highway.  He said, “That sounds great to me if you don’t mind, and it sure beats the weeds!!”  As we drove in the dark, we shared with him about the Lord and His work in our lives and how Jesus had set us free and given us peace in our hearts.  We got home very late, and we all went straight to bed–his bed being a weed-free couch in our little living room.

My wife left early in the morning for work.  When the hitchhiker and I got moving, I asked him if he’d like some eggs for breakfast.  (Since that was the only food we had!)  “Sounds GREAT!” he said.  He was a hungry dude and ate ten of our twelve eggs, unknowingly leaving my wife and me with two eggs to share for a later meal.   Our current food supply had been a continual urgent matter of prayer.  We would continue to trust the Lord for our food even though we only had two eggs.  I started thinking of ways to enjoy our last two eggs. I was thinking about hard boiling them, cutting them in half and laying the two halves yolk-side down on each plate.  On the one half I was going to push in a birthday-type candle and on the second half paint a smiley face with food coloring.  I planned on surrounding them with wildflowers from out back by the railroad tracks behind our mobile home and enjoy our two remaining eggs by candlelight.

Later that day, my wife came home all excited saying, “I got my first check!! I got my first check!!”  We went to the grocery store and had a really nice supper.  But part of me thought that the university where she was now working would have held back her first two weeks’ of pay and so she wouldn‘t be paid till the end of her fourth week.  No matter, we were happy to have the money and some food to eat. While eating, though, she said, “I think they made a mistake on my check and overpaid me.”

The next day she went in and spoke with the payroll department about her check error.  The lady there said, “There is no error on the check, but HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOU GET YOUR CHECK??”  She continued, “You’re a new instructor, and we hold back your first two weeks’ of pay.  I‘ll have to look into this.”   Turns out, that my wife’s check had somehow accidentally gotten mixed up with the janitor’s checks and was handed out to her two weeks ahead of time!  When we had no money and only two eggs, the Lord blessed us with an early payday . . . knowing our needs and going before us to provide exactly what we needed exactly when we needed it!

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”   –Matthew 6:31-33 (NLT)

Copyright © 2010 by William D. (Nick) Nichols

This happened to me last week and is a different kind of faith story . . .

Sitting in my van under the shade of the tree, I was taking a lunch break after working on my sailboat all morning.  A robin landed on the cement base of a lamppost near the front of my van and stared at me through the van window.  She appeared to be assessing me as to whether or not I was a threat.  I pointed at the dollar burger with extra onion I was eating, trying to assure her that the only thing I was interested in eating was my burger.   She must have understood as she turned her attention to other things in the area and only occasionally glanced back at me.

There was a country road right beside me that passed into the little boating town where I was staying.  Munching on my burger, I watched the butterflies and birds flit and fly by and a couple of groundhogs on the other side of the country road grazing in the green grass.  Apparently, one groundhog decided the other had grazed its way into his territory and started chasing the careless grazer.  They chased each other back and forth for a bit . . . entertainment for me as I watched these brown fur-balls running at high speed through the green grass.

Suddenly, one jumps on top of the other one, and from where I was sitting, it looked like they were fist fighting.  The groundhog on top was hammering away on the groundhog on the bottom.  Soon, the one on the bottom must have yelled “uncle” and went tearing across the road in my direction.  The winner stood by the side of the road with his forepaws spread wide, head erect, chest thrust out, and baring his two, large dagger-like front teeth!  This is hard to explain, but after beating the crap out of the other groundhog, he looked PROUD!!  He was like struttin’ his stuff!  He was clearly sending a message to the other guy or any other groundhogs that happened to be watching saying, “I’m a bad dude!  Anybody messes with me, and he’s gonna be mush!  So stay outta my grazin’ grass!!”

Then, while savoring his taste of victory as he reveled in the “sweetness” of his conquest, I saw him jump about a foot into the air, tumble sideways a few times, and then get spit out by the back tire of the bright red truck that had just run over him.  There he lay on his back with his forepaws sticking up, his head lying straight back, and his short little brown furry legs spread flat on the ground.  No breathing, no twitching, no nothing–he was gone.  I watched as a few more cars drove by, running over his little legs.  Feeling bad for the little guy, I walked across the road and pushed him into the grass with my foot.  Looking down at him, there he was . . . the proud triumphant victor and in an instant . . . a dead nobody.

Walking back to the van, I thought about the Scripture, “Pride goes before a fall” and how fragile life can be.  You can be the smartest and brightest–bump your head wrong, and your brains are gone; you can be the strongest and toughest–a serious illness strikes, and those strong muscles waste away.  Life is fragile.  Just a few days ago, one of my wife’s students was driving to meet her husband at work.  On the way, she saw a car accident surrounded my emergency vehicles and police officers, not knowing it was her husband of three years dead at the wheel.  Life is so very fragile, and there are no guarantees about anything in life . . . except Jesus and His promise never to leave us or forsake us.
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First Step is Faith:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” –John 3:16  (NIV)

Second Step is the Promise:  “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” –Jesus    Heb 13:5  (NKJV)

Copyright © 2010 by William D. (Nick) Nichols

PS: Our sympathies and prayers go out to my wife’s student and the loss of her beloved husband.