I recently sat down with a young couple, and the young lady told me this amazing testimony of one of our sermons at Thousand Hills inspired her to worship God when things didn’t go how she hoped they would go. Because of her line of work, I cannot mention her name. Check out her story here:
On February 5th, Sebastiaan shared a message in the Compelled series about being ‘compelled to worship’. In times of trouble will you complain, or will you pray and worship, like Paul & Silas did in Acts 16 when they were imprisoned for preaching the gospel? The most important thing I took from this message was Sebastiaan’s comment that worship and prayer will only be your response if that’s what you train yourself to do. “Start training”, I said to myself.
In the week that followed I had a conversation with my boss. My contract was about to end so I asked her what was going to happen with the extra hours I had worked. This was an important question since I had 76 hours accrued, and would soon be unemployed. She told me that, because of the way how my contract was set up, the hours would not be paid but would simply expire.
Obviously I got upset. I had worked very hard for those hours! I had the right to get the money.
Cycling home, I was angry and felt defeated. Then, suddenly, I remembered Sebastiaan’s message. So… this was it. This was the troubled moment where I had a choice to make: Do I stay angry and upset or do I, despite my feelings, start to praise God for this situation?
At first it felt unnatural to thank God for the situation but as I continued my heart changed. I started feeling really grateful that God had put me in this situation, for I knew He was teaching me to live closer to Him.
That morning I had read a text in the Bible, saying: How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver! (Proverbs 16:16). This verse didn’t speak to me when I read it, but it certainly did when I was on my bicycle!! How true, God was giving me wisdom and understanding! I didn’t care about the money anymore. God gave me the situation to learn from, and if I needed the money, he would provide. It was miraculous to experience how God changed my heart in such a moment.
When I arrived home, I checked my contract, just to be sure. It said nothing about not being able to get paid for the extra hours I made! I contacted Human Resources and the man told me: ‘Of course you’ll get the money. You worked for it. In fact, you have 20 more extra hours than you thought.’
And instead of thinking I deserved the money, I was left grateful and amazed by God’s love and power.
If you would like to check out the sermon video or download the MP3, click here.