1421

As soon as the service was over September 12, Marla and I hopped on my bike and headed for the mountains in North Carolina. All I packed was two tee shirts and just a couple other necessities. When we turned off the interstate at the South Carolina state line, we began maneuvering the Appalachian Mountains. After hundreds of 20 MPH curves and steep inclines, we approached our destination around 11:00 P.M. It's all good. We were tired but glad to be there. Just to let you know where we were, we were an hour away from the nearest Wal-Mart. A common way to describe where you are is how far it is to the nearest Wal-Mart. I was really looking forward to riding the mountains and especially the most popular motorcycle rides in North Carolina and Tennessee. We got up Monday morning and found that there were coffee filters in the room but no coffee. Emergency # 1:  I needed to go and buy coffee.  Emergency #2: When I went outside, I saw that most of my transmission fluid was on the pavement under my bike. I wasn't too disturbed over this because I found myself praising God nothing bad had happened the night before climbing the mountains. This was a little setback but nothing He could not handle. It wasn't but just a few minutes that I began to see the purpose in our trouble.


The maintenance man at our resort needed to talk. It was obvious things were not up to par in his life and we spent the next 45 minutes talking. In fact, while I waited on the tow truck to come, he took me to town to buy some groceries. Objective number one: buy coffee. When we arrived back at the resort the tow truck showed up and took me to Anderson, South Carolina. The driver proceeded to tell me he had been on every drug known to man but had given His life to Christ. It was a good 45 minutes before he asked me what I did for a living. "I'm a pastor" I thought he was going to jump out of his skin. The truck swereved.  I said "my bike." He began telling me how he had prayed that morning that God would send him a positive witness in his pickups for the day. Me, I just want to ride the curves but God had other plans for the day. We had a great time talking about the things of God. It was obvious to me this was another divine appointment.

We arrived at the Harley dealership and the owner met us at the truck and unloaded the bike. He took a look and said: "We will get you fixed up pretty soon." He in turn called Perry Noble at NewSpring Church in Anderson and asked him to come down to meet me. Unfortunately Perry was sick but we had a great time hanging out while getting my bike fixed. This was another divine appointment. While waiting, another man was getting tires put on his bike and we struck up a conversation. I'm still thinking: Lord get me back to Marla so we can ride. God said okay but you are going to ride back with the guy you are talking to. We began to talk about God and what God was doing. Yes, and we rode back across the mountain together. Finally, I arrived back at our resort around 7:00 P.M.

I had not planned on spending the day with these four people but God had other plans. I am thankful for the way God puts people in our way to speak to us and through us. Often times the delays in life are for a purpose. This day was just another way God showed me He has awesome plans for our lives and how He is even concerned about the smallest details. When I got back I thanked God for the opportunities He had given me that day to share His love with others. I thanked Him for protecting us on Sunday as we rode through the mountains with a busted transmission seal.

The story goes on. We rode over 700 miles in the mountains before deciding to spend our last day at the Leadership Conference at NewSpring Church in Anderson. Hearing guys like Francis Chan, Perry Noble, Mark Driscoll, and Judah Smith was just another reminder God wanted us in the mountains. When we arrived at NewSpring, they took us to the registration counter and asked who we were and what church we were from. The guys smiled and said: Welcome to NewSpring, you are our guest today." Wow, that saved us the same amount of money that it took to fix my bike. Go figure! 1421 miles later we got back to Tupelo. God is good.