Asking God for a Sign

Last Sunday I taught a lesson from Genesis 24 where Abraham sent his servant to find a wife for his son Isaac. The following passage v12-21 is where the servant prayed that it would be obvious when he found the right woman. His prayer was answered before he finished praying:

12 Then he prayed, "O LORD, God of my master Abraham, give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. 13 See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. 14 May it be that when I say to a girl, 'Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,' and she says, 'Drink, and I'll water your camels too'-let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master."
15 Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, who was the wife of Abraham's brother Nahor. 16 The girl was very beautiful, a virgin; no man had ever lain with her. She went down to the spring, filled her jar and came up again.
17 The servant hurried to meet her and said, "Please give me a little water from your jar."
18 "Drink, my lord," she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink.
19 After she had given him a drink, she said, "I'll draw water for your camels too, until they have finished drinking." 20 So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough, ran back to the well to draw more water, and drew enough for all his camels. 21 Without saying a word, the man watched her closely to learn whether or not the LORD had made his journey successful.

Our lesson got stuck on the part whether or not it is wrong to ask God for a sign. If you ask for a sign do you lack in faith? Even Gideon asked God for a sign to specifically make dew appear on a fleece covering and the rest of the ground. When that happened Gideon then asked if God would make the fleece dry and the ground all around it wet with dew.

First of all I think the closer to God you are, the more obvious the sign will be. Sometimes we pray for something that we know we are going to do whether or not God gives us a sign. We'll justify or make up signs that are from God.

Anyway, this lesson hit home with us last week. As I was teaching this lesson we were driving a 2008 Dodge Avenger that a dealer let us drive. We really liked the car. We were looking at a similar 2007 Chysler Sebring. My wife came up with some criteria that she felt comfortable with. The car must have under 20,000 miles and our payment wouldn't be any more than $237. The dealer finally found the 2007 Sebring and we drove it. We were turned off by how rough it looked for a 1 year old car. It was in a rental fleet. Also, the add said 16,000 miles and it ended up having 21,000 miles on it.

We left that dealer to look at another 2007 which was supposed to have about 16,000 miles as well. It too had over 20,000 miles. I knew my numbers pretty well and knew we should get close to the $237 payment. They guy came in at a range of $265-$275. After looking real hard I noticed they were charging $700 for some window ID etching. We left.

The next day the salesman called an said $249 was the final offer. Since the car had some body damage on it, over 20,000 miles, I called back and said no thanks. I got a call back the next day and their final offer was $240 a month. A mere $3 a month away from our number. I am so glad they didn't offer the $240 the night we were there. We probably would have signed a deal.

I think God laid it upon our hearts that we needed to be closer to a $230 a month range and gave us an opportunity to walk away from the deal when it was $265. He also let us walk away from the first car because the miles were too high and the vehicle was a tad bit rough. We are so glad and so comfortable that we did not buy a car.

I spent 2 hours on Saturday doing a full detail on my wife's 2000 Dodge Neon and it looks really nice. IF we do trade it I think I can command an extra $500 or more or even sell it for twice what the dealer would give us.