How Did God Do That?

God did something this week that Phil and I have been trying to do for months. Now it’s no surprise that God can do something we can’t, but it would have saved us some frustration if we had just realized this earlier! If we’d left it in God’s hands instead of trying to do it our way!

Let me explain……

Our son Jackson is extremely talented when it comes to playing the guitar. When he was 6 he started playing the drums, but never really took to it, and asked if he could learn the guitar. My sister had an old one he could borrow so it wasn’t going to cost us an arm and a leg to get him started, so we thought why not?

Well, he took to it like a duck to water. We never once had to ask him to practice, and he would spend hours teaching himself songs off youtube. He started lessons with one of the young guys from Church and went from strength to strength. Now, I know as parents, we probably sound biased, but he is ridiculously talented and we wanted to share his talent with the world so suggested he join the kids’ band at Church.

Oh My Goodness! You have never seen such resistance in your life! There was no way he was going to join! Didn’t matter how much we encouraged, how much we coerced, how much we threatened (no more lessons if no one gets to enjoy your playing!) how much we tried our parental powers of persuasion, nothing was going to get this kid to play in front of people……. or so we thought!

After a couple of months, we gave up, defeated! Our teenager had won the battle and no one except us and the cows in the paddock were going to get to enjoy his musical talents!

So being the guitar enthusiast that he is, he decided that he would like a new guitar. The one he has is ok (don’t worry, we did upgrade him from his Aunty’s old guitar) but he wants a Gibson SG (apparently in the guitar world this means something!) These cost in the thousands and even though he has a number of jobs, it’s still going to take a while to save for. But this is something Jackson REALLY wants!

Jackson decided that he would make a deal with God!

He said to God that when he gets the Gibson, he will join the kids’ band. To this, God replied, “When you join the kids’ band, then you will get the Gibson!”

Wow! Doing deals with God at the age of 14, this kid has got guts! But I love God’s response and love the fact that he has a sense of humor!

So to cut a long story short, Jackson has joined the kids’ band (we had nothing to do with it this time, he did it all himself) and has even played in front of people (we weren’t privy to watching his first performance, in fact, we were told that if we were there he would leave the stage, so we respected that and hoping to watch next time!) He is getting over his crippling fear of playing in front of people and he actually admitted that he enjoyed it!

Something we tried for months to achieve was accomplished in a 2-minute conversation with God!

I love the way God works and I am looking forward to sharing the story of how and when Jackson gets his Gibson!