Learning Trust from the Bus

Our band has a bus. Well actually, we have two busses…or is that busi? Anyway, we don’t need two vehicles for our band to travel in. We just need one…one that works well…one that gets 15 maybe 18 miles to the gallon…one that doesn’t drink oil…and maybe, just maybe, one that doesn’t break down every 1,500 miles ‘cause our average band trip is 1,800 miles.

7 miles to the gallon is killer on our budget. Especially when we play for “passing the hat” or tips which is most of the time. I often pray and ask God, “Why can’t our bus be more efficient and reliable?” I haven’t got an answer yet. But, I am sure that God has a lesson in this for me and the other guys in the band.

The story goes like this. The bus broke down about a year ago (October of 2011) in Saginaw, Michigan. It just left us high and dry. My wife had to come all the way from Wisconsin and get us! (While I’m typing this I am humming “You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me Lucile” to myself) It has been sitting on a church parking lot all this time. We (The Band members) have made many…many attempts to bring this thing back to Wisconsin. Others have tried to help us. We bought the second bus in an attempt to get a trailer and tow the first bus home. (FYI: the band named the first bus Irwin and the second bus Irwin Jr. because it’s smaller than the first bus).

We used Irwin Jr. to travel in for awhile. After a time of building our finances, we prepared Irwin Jr. to go get Irwin. We rented a 20’ foot trailer and took off to Saginaw to go get Irwin. The trip was disastrous and explaining what happened will be for another blog entry someday! Suffice it to say that Irwin Jr. also broke down in Michigan and after 2 days of repairs and some police action, we hobbled home. We spent almost $700.00 to get Irwin and came home empty handed. Finally, after a year of sitting in Saginaw and threatened with impoundment, Irwin was repaired just enough for us to drive it home.

So now, we have two vehicles for the band. Irwin has a bad engine but the cabin has been converted and is more practical for the band to use. Irwin Jr. has a good engine but gets 7 miles to the gallon and is super hot to travel in and still needs to be converted for usefulness. What to do?

We need to get rid of one and use the money to fix the other. We will never get enough out of the sale of either to fully pay for the upgrades. We could sell both of them and start over (that just sounds painful).

As you can see at this point we don’t know what to do. We need about $4000.00 to make this work. $4000.00 we don’t have. There is no doubt our feeble little band needs God’s help. We (The Band) ask for His help daily! To this point, we have not received any subliminal messages, impressions or angelic visitations, nor have we received $4000.00.

That’s where trust comes in. Proverbs 3:5, 6 says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.”

“OK, Lord could it be that I’m not trusting You enough, ‘cause, I don’t know how to trust You more than I am trusting you now.”

What would you do?