BY LEE SCHAPPELLAn old adage warns us to be careful what we ask for, because we just might get it. To that counsel you may add: Be especially mindful of the things you pray for, for precisely that same reason. Experience is speaking here!
 
Planning Ahead
I had scheduled a medical consultation in the Washington, D.C., area, and was dreading the prospect of an early-morning trek into unfamiliar territory amid droves of rabid, work-bound commuters.
 
Then, the day before my appointment, the idea popped into my cranium: What if my wife and I were to take a leisurely drive down to D.C. tonight, instead of tomorrow morning, and grab a motel room near the hospital? Traffic should be tolerable by that time of the evening. Moreover, we wouldn’t have to arise before the rooster to make our appointment. There would remain just a short jaunt after a good night’s sleep and a casual breakfast.
 
What’s that they used to say about pigs flying? I wish I had paid more attention to folk wisdom when I was young.
 
It was a very pleasant late-spring evening as we cruised through southeastern Pennsylvania, deep into Maryland, around Baltimore, and into the outskirts of Washington.
 
The perennial optimist, I began searching the immediate vicinity of the hospital for accommodations for the night. But one motel after another in the area was filled. We then migrated outward in ever-widening circles with no success. We tried up the pike, down the pike, across the pike, over the river, through the woods, and literally up into the next county to the north, back toward home. Not one vacancy could be found.
 
Unbeknownst to us, a big conference or convention ran through the entire week, involving all the area colleges and universities.
 
My wife, Elsa, wondered aloud whether we should just sleep in the car. But I countered that I would still require a shower before seeing the doctor. I didn’t want to appear as though I had spent the night in a dirty clothes hamper.
 
“Well, let’s try farther up the road,” I mumbled.
 
After another hour of futility, my bleary-eyed Elsa suggested that she would inquire at the next motel. “They might have more compassion for a very sleepy woman,” she reasoned.
 
As I watched her spunky little form bravely make its way through the doorway of that umpteenth motel, I prayed aloud, “Lord, have mercy on us in our simple need for a place to catch a few winks of sleep. Won’t You please help us find a room? Even if it’s just ‘a hole in the wall,’ we really need a safe place to crash for what’s left of the night.”
 
By now Elsa had returned to the car, shaking her head east to west. I thanked her for her valiant effort, and assured her we would be finding a place, because I had asked the Lord to intervene on our behalf. Why had I waited so long before turning to the One who faithfully supplies our needs?
 
We pulled out onto the highway and continued north, even farther in the opposite direction from the next day’s appointment. Presently we came upon a large motel complex with units on both sides of the highway. I drove up to the office and, looking at my watch, exclaimed, “Tomorrow? It is tomorrow!”
 
As I trudged up to the window, the little man at the desk said, “You want a room? We got a room for you. Come.”
 
“Thank You, Lord!” Elsa and I became about as ecstatic as can be expected of a semicomatose pair. But our enthusiasm lasted only until we peeked into our room.
 
“Yikes!” whispered Elsa, rolling her eyes. “This is a dump! What on earth did you pray for?” I pretended I didn’t hear her.
 
Good News, Bad News
The bad news was the room was littered with roaches; but the good news was they were all dead. Wall to wall across the floor, on the sink, in the tub, not a creature was stirring. Good news indeed, though this was not a laughing matter—not yet.
 
The hysterics didn’t begin until we slipped into the bed from opposite sides and immediately rolled involuntarily down into the center, clacking into each other like bowling pins in the gutter. That old rack was more swaybacked than a nag headed for the glue factory.
 
Needless to say, the waning hours of the morning were anything but restful. Dawn came after perhaps four hours of drifting in and out of consciousness while clinging tenaciously to the outer edges of the mattress for lateral stability.
 
Have you ever showered on your tiptoes? Or attempted to complete your morning routine without touching anything?
 
Of course, we were grateful that God had opened a way through a seemingly impossible situation to provide a place to sleep and prepare for our commitment. But this was not what I’d had in mind when I petitioned for divine intervention the night before.
 
A quick time check and subsequent calculation of our geographical location revealed that we had no time for even a crumb of breakfast. We were approximately an hour from our intended destination, with the appointment in exactly one hour.
 
So with sleepy eyes and growling tummies we passed the next 60 minutes doing the curbside crawl, eking our way bumper to bumper into the city for my consultation.
 
Lessons Learned
Through the laughter and the gaping yawns during our drive back home that afternoon, Elsa and I rehashed, analyzed, and assimilated a monumental lesson from our experience.
 
In my heart of hearts I knew I had created this fiasco myself by not exercising adequate faith, which God has given to all who trust wholly in Him, that He would care for the entirety of our requirement that night. In my desperation and discouragement, in the wake of too many hours of exhaustive searching for a place to stay, my wimpy prayer minimized our need, as well as God’s willingness to fulfill it.
 

I had frittered away that entire evening, following my own plan, searching in my own strength, employing my own feeble, mortal wisdom. Then, after exhausting all apparent options, I had finally turned to the Lord for assistance, requesting—and settling—for bare-bones minimal accommodations, because that’s all I had asked Him for.
 
Did He give us precisely what I had requested? Yes, He did; and quite promptly, I might add. Did we receive all He would have loved to provide? I think not, because I was too eager to settle for a roach motel, when He always has something much finer in mind for us (John 14:2).
 
God is so very, very good. He has promised to supply our every need. His Word tells us we may come confidently before our Father (Heb. 4:16) and ask Him for the things we need (Matt. 7:7-11), knowing that He delights in providing them all. Does He not reveal Himself as Jehovah-jireh, our divine provider? That’s His name! It’s who He is!
 
The apostle James chides that we have not because we ask not (James 4:2), and assures us that the genuine, persistent prayer of the righteous packs some serious “juice” before the throne of grace (see James 5:7).
 
These are trying times in which we are driven by nearly impossible time constraints and must often contend with difficult temperaments. But ours is a God who is able to guide us through the straits, if we are willing to trust and follow. And He desires to empower and bless us beyond anything we can ever imagine, if we are willing to walk with Him, day by day, moment by moment.
 
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Lee Schappell lives in Reading, Pennsylvania, sharing God’s good news with country gospel music as a member of the new earth band. This article was published October 27, 2011.