Back in 2008 I heard a friend of my mother’s
say “thank you Lord” when we got a good car park. I thought this was absolutely
absurd and asked her why she was thanking God for a good carpark? She told me
that she always prayed for good car parks wherever she went, and that God was
always faithful.
To be honest, I initially thought this was rather
over the top! Why would God, who has the universe to run, when there were
people living in extreme hardship and poverty in the world, care about whether
I got a good car park or not? But early the next year the chronic pain muscle
condition that I lived with moved to my
legs and every step became extremely painful for me. It was then that I also
started to pray for good car parks close to the shops that I wanted to go to.
And it was then that I started to be amazed.
Initially in doing this I would pray for a
good car park and then take the first car park on the street of the shop I
wanted to go to that came available thinking that this was the best park I
would get. Then I would painfully have to walk the couple of hundred metres to
the shop, only to find that there was a car park right outside the shop that
was there waiting for me. This happened to me time and time again until I
started to have the faith to trust that God had the best for me. I would then not
take the first car park that became available. I would keep going up the road
and to my amazement I would get a car park very close to, if not right outside,
where I wanted to go.
I have now done this for over 6 years and God
has taught me a lot about life and his providing the best for us if we trust
him through it.
All of my life I have trusted God that if it
was his will he would provide me with a man, a life partner, who believed in
what I believed in and who was right for me. Throughout high school I wouldn’t
date anyone who didn’t share my Christian beliefs as these beliefs were too
important to me, and too much of who I am, to not be able to share them with
the most dear person in my life.
There have been many times over the past 20
or so years that I’ve thought about pursuing certain guys but have felt the
Lord saying that, like the car parks a few hundred feet down the road, that he
had the absolutely right one for me and to trust him. At times this has been quite
a hard one to hold to as 38 years is a long time to wait! I also had times
feeling as though I thought I really only deserved the male equivalent of a
park at the wrong end of the street before the shop where I wanted to park. A
man who was absolutely not the best that God could give me. Was not someone who
suited to me, was someone who could treat me badly, and not treat me with
respect or love.
However, in meeting someone in recent times
that I guess you could say is the equivalent to the absolute best carpark, directly outside the shop
I wanted to go to, I have realised that the theory was valid.
If, due to having been single for so long had
left me desperate, I would have settled for the ‘car park 500 metres away’ in a
man. This would have meant that I would never have met the absolutely ideal
‘car park’ that God had in store for me.
What God has taught me about life and men
through car parks is to not settle for anything less than the best that He has
in store for us. If we do we will never get to experience the best ‘car park’ (or
in this case, man). The one that he preordained, is absolutely right for us,
and that He has always had in store.
Far too many people in life settle for less
than the best because they don’t actually believe that they are worth the best.
But the more I have applied my believing for the best carpark theory to life,
the more that I have become aware that God has the absolute best for us. We
need to take hold of that, trust him for it and keep on believing it and not
settle for less than that.
For 37 years I didn’t, and I could not be
more stunned and amazed at the ‘absolutely perfect car park’ equivalent of a man
that God has brought into my life.
Don’t settle for less than the best that God
has for you people – you might be surprised to find that you get it!
