David released his faith, believed he received and thanked God every day for his new bike. Weeks passed without it manifesting. Then one day his dad stuck his head in the travel trailer and said, “David, I’ve got your bike!”
Breathless with expectation, David ran outside.
It was green. The handlebars were rusted. The seat was ripped.
“That’s not my bike!”
“Yes, it is!”
“No, it isn’t!”
“This is your bike!” David’s dad shouted while trying to straighten the tire that he’d accidently run over with the car.
Both father and son were depressed when they arrived at their next stop in Arkansas. A man from the local church said, “Brother Crank, would you walk with me to my house? My dad owned the Western Auto store and it went out of business. Everything in the store sold except this. I wondered if your son might have use for it.”
It was a brand new orange bike. With tall handlebars, streamers and a banana seat.
“My bike!” David shouted with joy.
His dad blinked back tears. “I spent my last $10 on an Ishmael,” he admitted.
Sometime the next year the bike had disappeared. Had it been stolen? David didn’t know. Years later, David’s dad had come to him in tears. “I got in a bind and pawned that bike for gas money to get to the next town.”
David forgave his dad, but the lesson had already been learned.
God responded to the prayer of faith.
Faithful Friends
“When I was little, Rick Shelton, one of my dad’s friends, came by and found me crying from hunger,” David recalls. “He bought milk for me and then rocked me. Rick always called me ‘Young David.’ He went into the ministry too, and when Dad started his church, Rick started one nearby. Being very gracious, the morning of his first service, Dad announced that we were all going to attend Rick’s service that night to support him.
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