I was taking my briefcase out of the trunk of my trusty, economical, 1963 Ford Comet when I noticed that the trunk lid was scraping on one side. As I lifted the lid up all the way to see what was wrong I heard a loud “crack”. The left hinge of the trunk had snapped and now I was really in trouble. You know what happens when you open a door that has only one hinge - that door swings wildly around. That’s what that trunk lid was doing. Since other people also used this car, the broken hinge was very dangerous and needed to be fixed right away.

So I called the dealer and was shocked as he informed me, “Last Spring we stopped stocking ’63 parts.” To my desperate plea of, “What can I do?” he responded “About the only hope you have is to find an old junk ’63 that would have a good hinge.” So I began calling the junk yards and soon discovered that nobody had a junked ‘63 Comet. Finally, one fellow said he had another make car that he thought might have a hinge that would fit. So I drove out there, and found it wouldn’t fit. I called several other places and found a dealer way up on the north end of town who said he had a ’62 Comet and he thought that hinge might fit.

As I directed the car northward toward the new possible solution to my problem, I looked over to the passenger seat where I kept the verses I was memorizing for that week. Hebrews chapter 4 was my project for that week. I reviewed in my mind the first verse: “Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” God had promised to give Israel the land of Canaan where they would enjoy rest and peace and blessing but rather than trusting Him they were constantly complaining about the difficulties they were experiencing along the way and as a result never entered the land of blessing. Failure to trust and thank Him for the present deprived them of the glorious future he had offered.

Suddenly God said to me, “You aren’t very happy are you?” I replied, “Lord, you know that I enjoy so much more being in my office studying Your Word rather than running all around the countryside trying to find a hinge for this trunk. The Lord’s response was, “Well, I tell you, when you get really happy about hunting for a hinge, I’ll put you back in your study.” Ashamed and repentant of my bad attitude I prayed “Lord, I thank you for this valuable lesson and thank you even for the broken hinge. I pray that you will find a hinge for me that will fix the trunk.” Would you believe it, that within one hour, I was back in my study, with the hinge installed on the trunk, and it was even the same color as the one that had broken.

You see, when I got happy in the junkyard, God put me in the heavenlies! He knows that I won’t really appreciate His blessings until I learn to thank Him for the trials.

Listen to Hebrews 4:1-2 – Learning How to Enjoy Prosperity