My God Encounter At A Parking Spot

Jesus answered, “This is the work of God: that you believe [adhere to, trust in, rely on, and have faith] in the One whom He has sent.” John 6:29

Recently I had an encounter with God and with my inner self. One beautiful morning, I headed downtown to deposit money at the ATM. Because the ATM was close to the mall, I planned to stop by the mall to pick up an item. The estimated time I would spend to make the deposit and pick up one item from the mall was about 15 minutes. I did not have coins on me for paid parking so I said a quick prayer -” Lord pls I need an already paid parking spot, I don’t think I have any coins to pay for parking”. If you read my post a few months back, I talked about praying for a parking spot and not having the faith to believe and receive it.

Well this time around, I could say that I had grown in faith, I had no doubt God would provide me a spot with time on it. I drove downtown and just as I got into the street I was to park and immediately saw a car pulling out of a parking spot. I knew that was my answer, I thanked God and drove right in, taking the spot. Indeed the spot had paid time on it.

While I was able to believe and receive a parking spot this time, I had to face a different challenge this time. Once I got out of the car, I checked to see how much time I had on the parking meter, it was 7 minutes. I planned to spend 15 minutes as mentioned earlier. As I stood I quickly searched my car and found a $1 coin, but then I had a nudge in my spirit. Why not just run down to the ATM and get your deposit done, you can get that done in less than 7 minutes. But I kept thinking, I need to get to the mall, that requires more time. Does having 7 minutes on the meter mean God doesn’t want me to go to the mall? Should I just let that go and get only the deposit done? I kept thinking to myself. To cut the story short, I finally put in the $1 into the meter because I wanted to get to the mall. Once that was done I headed down to the ATM. On my way, I realized the mall was closed.

Oh my goodness, that is why God gave me a meter with only 7 minutes because that’s all I needed. I still cannot clearly articulate how I felt at that moment. The first feeling was an overwhelming sense of love. God knew the mall was closed, answered my prayers, and gave me just what I needed, but I couldn’t see it.

The second feeling that hit me was a deep sense of dissatisfaction with my level of trust in God.

“ If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! Matthew 7:11

Do you know how many times I have read that scripture? If you had asked me I would confidently tell you I believe God gives good gifts He gives the best and always gives more than needed. He always does exceedingly abundantly. Yet in practice, in reality, I was not living from the consciousness of that truth. If I believed God gives more than needed, I would have known that the 7 minutes He gave on the meter was more than enough. I would have simply headed to the ATM trusting that if He didn’t give me 15 minutes, then maybe I did not need to go to the mall. But I did not, I did not trust that what He gave was enough. I was humbled by my level of distrust.

I could not help but wonder, in what other ways I have shouted, confessed, and assumed I believed yet my actions betray my words. How many other times have I chosen to depend on my wallet instead of depending on Him? How many times have I rejected His gifts and the answers to my prayers because they did not show up in the similitude of what I thought I needed? How many times have I wasted resources because of my lack of trust?

I’ve always known that actions are a product of belief, but on this day the lesson was highlighted with a different level of intensity. The real work in Christianity is really to believe but getting to the level of belief that influences your actions is a lot of work. It takes a reprogramming of the mind, which requires a whole level of discipline, time, meditation, and more. This work of believing is what the bible calls labor, it will require intentionality and effort. It’s so easy to focus on the external, we want to talk right, act right, and be externally what the scripture requires of us, but most times we fall short because we can not sustain being on the outside who we have not become on the inside. We cannot continuously act right when we do not believe right. Therefore to act right and live right, we must first learn to believe right.

The level to which we are transformed internally would most likely be the level at which we would permit the life and glory of God to shine through our lives. Therefore our primary commitment should be the transformation of our minds, that’s where we limit God the most, and that’s where we hinder His work in our lives.

It is my prayer that we will all be awakened to a new level of commitment in our journey of transformation. May we no longer hinder God in our lives. May Jesus marvel at our faith, not our unbelief.

Love Always

Obebi