I, myself, was in a terrible situation a few years back. My family rented a house in a lower-end neighborhood, and, unintentionally, in an Caucasian Asian community. We had to learn we were living in a inner city, violent gang related area, and our lives quickly became filled with needy opium addicts. Biblical...we had rented in the Pharaoh's Egypt!
I remember walking around the inside of the landlord’s quiet home. Not really knowing what, or even where, we where going we passed through a maze of boxed shape honeycombs arranged to cover the entire back part of his home. The wooden lattice work meant nothing to us, it simply was something interesting to see, and the matter was dropped as he being eccentric. We rented the house he had listed. Conveniently, it was situated just across the road from his large blocked house. It was the beginning of a honeycomb of tyrannies that we daily, quietly, walked through trying not to create waves among person who looked like our own kind in color and believing the same as us in temperament.
Returning home one late afternoon, fear overwhelmed me as that day's events piled up inside my mind. The multitude of drug players who were set on a stage of forgotten paper lanterns and bamboos reeds hanging over on to themselves. I, for one, began to grasp at paper straws. Playing out the scenario portrayed in Exodus, and I tossed down a fake cane stick. Walking quickly by the broken branch I played out the scene of Moses and the Pharaoh. "If", I prayed, "if there is any storage for me in heaven, send me something I can understand so I can be helped out of this terrible dilemma that I have before me, Lord. What do I do?"
Exodus 7: 8-13
Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 9 "Pharaoh will demand that you show him a miracle to prove that God has sent you. When he makes this demand, say to Aaron, 'Throw down your shepherd's staff,' and it will become a snake." 10 So Moses and Aaron went to see Pharaoh, and they performed the miracle just as the LORD had told them. Aaron threw down his staff before Pharaoh and his court, and it became a snake. 11 Then Pharaoh called in his wise men and magicians, and they did the same thing with their secret arts. 12 Their staffs became snakes, too! But then Aaron's snake swallowed up their snakes. 13 Pharaoh's heart, however, remained hard and stubborn. He still refused to listen, just as the LORD had predicted.
Within days, I strongly thought about flipping a coin…the decision making game. Flipping up a nickel, I tried to read which side it was on..heads or tails! So many times I had heard about the coin toss verse and other related coin passages, but never did it seem to be a life course example for me to use. Making a decision based on that simple recall of biblical information, I felt my prayers to heaven had truly given me an answer. I got a coin out, lightly flip it into the air, caught it with both hands, open my palms and looked at the side facing up at me.
Mark 12: 13-15
The leaders sent some Pharisees and supporters of Herod to try to trap Jesus into saying something for which he could be arrested. 14 "Teacher," these men said, "we know how honest you are. You are impartial and don't play favorites. You sincerely teach the ways of God. Now tell us -- is it right to pay taxes to the Roman government or not? 15 Should we pay them, or should we not?" Jesus saw through their hypocrisy and said, "Whom are you trying to fool with your trick questions? Show me a Roman coin, and I'll tell you."*other examples: Acts 1, Acts 9, John 6:63, Isaiah 46:10, Hebrews 4, Isaiah 55, Genesis 11
With each need, I began to toss that coin in a prayerful query. Using the head/tails answers hings began to pull together, and the tyrannies began to abate. I was finding ways around the violence, and, better yet, finding ways to make more money through the saving grace, so to say. The savings that enabled us to leave the area for good. Each time the echoes swarmed in around me as the drug filled demoned arena that I was living in sought to take its own control. Always panicking, the Mark 12:13-15 verses flooded my mind with the teaching of Jesus Christ and His Life. There too He needed guidance. His enemies that were surrounding Him. My making a decision by flipped a coin became a realistic coin helper who out weighed my confused thoughts...Yes, this is how He did it! The trouble passed away from Him...the trouble would pass away from me. Asking Jesus, I steadily juggled a coin...sometimes quarters, pennies or nickels, whatever was handy. A feeling of salvation, came with each answer until I was completely out of that horrible situation.
With this I pray, as Jesus is Lord. With or with out the saving coin I found the precious Jesus as He walked with me. I spoke to Him who has gone home with the angels...and, He answered me. Amen.
