To GOD Be All Glory!

Beloved Dad, Most Glorious, Most Holy in Heaven!
Thank You for the miracle with which You favored me on the morning of April 1, 2007. You are truly faithful and steadfast in showing Your grace in big things and in little things alike! In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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The Praise and Worship tape would not eject from the cassette player of my car [a 2003 KIA Pride model] this morning: it was working just fine two hours before. The Sunday worship service had just finished. I was delighted after having listened to a businessman’s testimony: he was bankrupt, he owed the bank an 8 figure debt [that’s 10 million pesos or more], and it would take him 12 years to pay -- even if the new investment he was counting on paid off [with the help of his financial acumen]. He confessed that God dealt with his pride and confidence in his own skill. In fact, contracts he was counting on were cancelled one after another. He had a perfect attendance record in church, fauthfully bringing his tithes, reading the Bible daily: so why were his prayers seemingly unanswered? God informed him it was his pride, his confidence in his own abilities. After he humbled himself before God, acknowledging that without God he could not accomplish anything, the investment earned enough profits to enable him to pay the bank in one year, fulfill his pledge to the church’s building fund and provide comfortably for his family. He credits God for all the success of the investment, nothing of his own doing. The Pastor’s sermon was a great blessing too: how to know God more intimately and imitate Jesus as the perfection of truth and grace [which, for most humans, are not always feasible or compatible].

Then I was extremely annoyed because no matter what I did the tape wouldn’t function. No repair shop could be found open on a Sunday; I tried speeding on road bumps to jar the eject mechanism; I tried to dislodge the tape manually, prying it with my plastic cards. I even sought help from my sister’s driver, [she lives nearby]. I tried for almost two hours. Nothing worked.
There must be something wrong with the circuitry, or the tape got all tangled up inside and jammed the mechanism: I will lose my favorite Praise tape. [irreplaceable! Cassette tapes like this are no longer on sale! I bought it in the 80’s] It probably will have to be cut, reduced to shreds. Who knows how many days I shall have to drive through the horrendous Manila traffic without the calming comfort of Christian music! I resigned myself to spending the better part of a day having the car radio repaired. “O Lord, please help me,” I sighed.

As I was parking the car in my garage, the tape ejected, it was intact, and the cassette player functioned just fine.

Praise the Lord! He is faithful in great and little things.

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Wes Hampton sings with the Gaither Choir this famous 1923 Baptist hymn by Thomas Chisholm and composer William M. Runyan: it became internationally popular since the Billy Graham Crusades in 1954. The lyrics spring from Lamentations 3:22-23.

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail."

Courtesy of YouTube.