The store - pt 1

[Karl Peters]

The Lord came into my life over 20 years ago. I had just woke up early one morning and a voice said, "READ YOUR BIBLE", and that voice hit me as if someone had stuck me in the side of the head. Everything was spinning, and I had to check my arms and legs to make sure I was ok. Then looking up I saw my Bible in a vision, behind my time clock. I looked there, and sure enough it was there just like in the vision. But it shouldn't have been. I don't think I had seen the Bible for over a decade. It should have been in a box buried in the garage or a closet. It was something my mom had given me.

Anyway, I read the Bible, figured out that the Lord was really there to hear from, and wound up knowing Him and talking to Him daily. I was a retail manager working at a large drug chain at the time. I had to get done this large project for them. He had been telling me that He was going to help me with it, but He hadn't and it was going to be needed soon. So, I went in one morning on my day off to work in the project. In the parking lot I told the Lord that I had to get this done and if He was going to help me on it, now was the time.

And He did respond to me clearly and precisely saying, "Karl, I want you to quit."

Now this was a good job so it shouldn't be surprising that my response to Him was, "QUIT-- YOU WANT ME TO QUIT!!!!!!!!"

Oh my, this was not good, was it? So I started explaining to Him about how it was a good paying job, and I was fine with it, and so on.

He responded, "Go home, you are quitting."

It was my day off, so without committing to quitting, I started for home trying to analyze what this all meant. There was a well known fleece thrown out in the Bible, so I asked Him perhaps He could give me some clear indication that it was Him, perhaps through my pastor?

"Yeah." He said, "Call up your pastor when you get home."

So I got hold of the pastor's wife, and set up to meet with him just that afternoon. We to an upstairs room where we talked. I told Him what I heard, and He told me about how he had done this church because the Lord had asked Him to quit a very nice job (better than mine) to open up the church. Well, I guess I needed to do what He asked. Then there was a huge clamp of thunder outside!! Which was kind of scarry, because it had been sunny outside when I was coming home.

Then with after the thunder the Lord told me, "Karl that is a sign the meeting is over. You need to tell pastor Jeff He is needed down stairs." So I did and we started to leave that upper room to go down stairs, but before we left we noticed that it had started raining hard outside. So we went to the window, and as we looked a small pickup truck pulled up with a lot of snow on it.

So I said, "Maybe it is snowing?", and regretted saying it as soon as I said it, because it doesn't snow there. I had lived there over ten years and had never seen it snow. Yet the pastor said, That is my daughter, and she was just around the corner."

We went down stairs and out the front door and it was indeed snowing and pretty hard too.

So I got in my car and was driving away when I heard the Lord tell me, "Karl, isn't it beautiful driving into the storm?"



Humm - It was beautiful and kind of peaceful driving in the snow, where it does not snow. I guess I was quitting. And I didn't have an idea of what I was going to do!




To be continued

 

[Karl Peters]

Later that same day the Lord asked me to do a number of other things.

He had me take my son to dinner, and had me tell him of a vision of a giant fire ball and the words "20 miles wide full of fire and fury", and as I told me son we both actually saw a falling star in the sky in front of us.

Then He had me go to my mom's to spend the night, and my car ran out of gas. I had a car that the Lord told me to get, and it's gas tank always showed full. So instead of getting it fixed, He asked me to trust Him to tell me when I needed gas. That worked for years, but not that night. I had to get my little gas can out of my car and run to the gas stations ahead. Yet while running their I notice that I was running in the snow on the side of the road. So He had caused it to snow and had me driving in it when He was confirming my quitting, And later had me running in the snow also, that same night.

Then I got to the first gas station but they were changing shifts and told me to wait seven minutes! Not five or ten, but seven minutes! So I ran across the street to the other gas station, where I got gas, but a lady there ask about my car, which was back on the road. She told me to get into her car because she was going to drive me back. She was very bold and commanding, so I let her drive me; and she told me that she had promised God to help people like me, because she had promised God that if He fixed her car she would help people like me, needing help with their car.

Therefore, God confirm that I should quit, by my pastor, by thunder, by snow storm, by falling star, and by a lady testifying about Him, all in the same day He told me to quit. So I agree to quit, but I still didn't know what I was going to do.

The next day, I drove back from my mom's and He spoke to me about opening up a Christian bookstore for Him. He drove me down a big main street in town and told me He wanted the store on that street. He even told me what to name the store and how He wanted it run, in general.


Now if anyone reads my post on this Christian forum, I tell people to listen to Him personally. That is what He wants me to do, and He calls that preaching the Word of God. And when I tell Christians that He is the Word of God we preach, because He personally speaks to us, one of the first things they think is that the Bible is the Word of God. So they think that I am not for the people and their Bibles!! They think that their reading the Bible is God speaking to them. They come up with all kinds of reasoning to not actually listen to Him, but rather lean on their own understand of what is written in the Bible!

So it was that He asked me to write this and the upcoming testimonies about the store, so perhaps someone will come to believe that God, Jesus Christ the Lord our God, is there to actually speak to us!! And if they did actually hear from Him, they would truly know about the Scriptures, because He would talk to them about them. Indeed, the first words He told me were, "Read Your Bible", and He has me open up a Christian bookstore for Him!

If they don't listen to the Teacher, then they just don't understand that He not only has the Bible as a textbook, but He also has them distributed to them. But the textbook is not the Teacher!!! And you are not His disciple if you don't actually listen to Him and your Teacher and Lord!!

He once told me:

WHAT TEACHER DOESN’T PUT A BOOK IN FRONT OF HIS STUDENTS TODAY; YET NOT JUST A BOOK BUT OVERHEAD TRANSPARENCIES, VISUALS, AND OTHER MATERIAL? FOR I TELL YOU TRULY, IF THEY ARE NOT LISTENING TO ME THEY ARE NOT MY PUPIL, THEY ARE NOT MY STUDENT; I TELL YOU TRULY, THEY ARE NOT MY DISCIPLE UNLESS THEY ARE HEARING FROM ME. SO DON’T TELL THEM TO READ THE BOOK, THEM TO TAKE THE CLASS!”

So if you are not listening to Him who can command the thunder, the snow, the stars to fall, and the people to help you, then you are not His pupil, His student, His, disciple, nor His sheep!!!


Oh - I will continue to testify some more about His and in the store He had me open for Him.