The store pt 2

[Karl Peters]

If you read my testimony - The store pt 1 - you would see that He told me to quit my job as a retail manager. That He gave me an incredible amount of proof that it was Him - as in advice to listen to Him from my pastor, and in literal thunder, a snow storm where it does not snow, in a falling star, and in running out of gas causing me to run through the snow to two gas stations where the first was closed for 7 minutes, and at the second I got a lift back and a testimony about the Lord Himself.

Now this morning He asked me to post about the reason for this testimony. First we must understand that we are not testifying about a God that might, on some rare occasion, show up and do something!! So a testimony about Him is not just about coming across a burning bush, but about the things He continually does in your life. The five books of Moses were the testimony on Moses. And the purpose of them, in case you did not understand, was that Moses was hearing from the Lord everyday! And so that is purpose the Lord wants for this testimony also!

Now the Lord had taken me down the street He wanted the store on, and had told me the name of the store, and generally how He wanted it run, but He had not told me exactly where. So the next day I called and gave my two weeks notice and started looking for a place on that street. I went up and down it, and down and up it, and I looked in the paper to see if there was anything there, but no matter how I looked I could not find a place.

Now I, like pretty much every person who lived in the flesh, except Him, tend to go back to leaning on our own understanding instead of listening to Him. He knows this, understands this, and works a bit on correcting this. It is not that He does want us to have a say, but He does want us to include Him more. So, it finally occurred to me that perhaps I needed to talk to Him about where He wanted the store. And for those people who say they follow the Bible, I just want to point out that the Bible cannot help you with any of this!! Though is can give you the wisdom to find salvation which is in Jesus Christ, whose name is called "The Word of God", because He does talk to men, and wants us to listen to Him!

So. I turned back to Him to help me find where exactly He wanted this Christian bookstore. He then took me down that same street and with one pass He pointed out 3 places that could be leased!!!

So just a warning about knowing the Lord; you are going to find out fairly soon have coming to know Him, that He is a whole lot smarter than you- in every way!!

Then He talked to my about, "Which one He wanted", which is what I asked Him. And I should just point out now that He answers the questions asked, which are not always what you think you are asking Him!!

So, He then explained the attributes of each of the store to me. One of them He really liked. It was an old restaurant that looked cute, and could have been reworked into a bookstore/coffee shop. He liked the idea, and even had a small Christian coffee shop that sold a couple of books on one end of the street. So He could have a coffee shop with a few books at one end and a bookstore with a bit of coffee at the other end, and this place would have been big enough to have small get togethers even with some live music. He told me that I could even offset the lease by having a pastor run a small church in there on Sundays. But I was going to have to have someone else come in with come financial help, and He told me who to ask. So I did ask that person, but they did not trust in the Lord enough for that.

He also talked to me about a very small place, that I could more easily afford. I like that idea, because I was going to have to cash in all my retirement money to do this thing, and even doubted whether that would be enough, So the cheaper that better, was my thinking. Yet He was telling me that place was really not big enough for His way of thinking. He explained that He would let me do it there, if that is all the faith I could muster - as in mustard seed amount of faith.

It turns out our faith has significant impact as to what He can do with us!! Perhaps you can remember in the Bible where He told the people of Nazareth (His home town) that He, God the Son, could not do great miracles there because of their lack of faith? Well, the other person that He had asked me to join Him and me, did not have enough faith for that, and I was having enough faith to even go for the medium size store that was available.

So Him and I talked about the medium sized store. I could get a vision of how that might work. So I called up the man leasing it and we made a verbal agreement. He was out of town that week, but we agree on terms as he set them out and he was going to meet with me next week. So I started making plans, I even talked to my pastor, and it turned out that my church was just a couple of short blocks away. Ok, I was getting excited, finally.

Yet the following week, the man to lease me the store didn't call. So I called him only to find out that he had gotten another call and leased it to someone else. In case someone doesn't know, verbal agreements are actually contracts. So that man had broken his agreement/contract with me. The Lord started speaking to me about how he had not broken his agreement with me, because the Lord Himself had asked me to make that agreement, and I had even told the man about the Lord telling me to lease it, which I actually did mention to him when we talked. That would make that man guilty before the Lord.

This is something people don't really understand well. We are to be the Lord's (who is the KING OF KINGS) ambassadors here on earth. So if we are listening to Him and doing what He asked, then they are really dealing with Him!! So for example: If a homeless person asks you for money and say that homeless person heard the Lord tell Him to ask you for money, are you just dealing with that homeless person or are you dealing with the Lord God All Mighty? Therefore you had better learn to start talking to Him for yourself, to find out what He wants you to personally do!!

Never-the-less, The Lord Himself gave people the freewill to choose between right and wrong, good and evil, so with that I had to choose another place. So I went back to my 'mustard seed' place, but it had already been leased. So now what?

Well, I again turned back to the Lord because again I didn't see any place on that street. Again He was able to show me three places, a lot like before. Again, He showed me a 'mustard seed' place that I liked because of the price. It however, was not actually on that street but on another busy street to the west. I like it though. I like the shopping center it was in, It was closer to my home. And honestly, I felt that if I did that store for a year, I might actually get through this needing to do a store for the Lord.

And again, there was a bigger place, which was even very close to a Christian ministry. It could either be a nice sized Christian store, and possibly I could have some coffee and pastries in it too, if it all worked out. It was nice, but it was going to have to take some more faith, because I would run out of money unless it did well.

And again there was a medium sized store. I figured I could get through the year unless all went really bad. So again I was talking back and forth with the Lord and realizing while doing so, that it was more about my level of faith than anything else. Consider - I would not have agree to any of this though if not for Him, His voice, and His wonders performed in my life. So I talked to Him as honestly as I could. What else are you to do. And we, Him and I, agreed to do the medium sized store again.

To be continued:

 

[Karl Peters]

I got this lease for the medium size store, and so I had to put is together.

Yet there was something I want to mention first, and that is that I found out later that specific location had been prayed over about five years earlier, and for it to be a Christian bookstore. And that was before I had even heard the first words from the Lord when He told me to "Read Your Bible". And when I found out I was shocked, because it was not my mom or my pastor of his wife who told me, but another pastor at my church.

It turned out that my mom with my pastor's wife had, five years earlier, been prayer walking around the town and they were praying as they felt lead by the Holy Spirit. And they had been led by the Holy Spirit to pray that God would remove the pizza place which was there and replace it with a Christian bookstore. And this is no small town, but a city of about 150,000 people. There are hundreds if not a thousand little stores and other places He could have put that store. And yet it wound up going into the very place where that pizza place had been, without me knowing it. Indeed, it was hard for me to even find an open place, and then He gave me choices, and those leasing to me also. And still He knew enough to have those listening to Him and even not listening to Him fulfill what He wishes. How can we grasp and understand the deeps of Him who is God?

You can't, but you can seek Him and listen to His voice!!

Now I had to put together that store and that meant I needed book, shelves, and all types of other things that you have to have to run a store, even like books and an accountant in that sense also.

And how should we go about getting all that?

That is easy to answer - we should talk to and listen to the Lord our God personally!!

to be continued

 

[Karl Peters]

So to put together the store I started listening to Him even more and more.

He would often wake me up in the morning with a vision, like perhaps of a shelf or fixture He wanted made. Then during the day He would take me to the hardware store to get the things He wanted me to get to build it. And we would spend the day putting together the shelves He waned.

Now I am not the handy man type at all. I didn't even have the tools for all this, but at the time He had me living with my brother who had all the tools and was the handy man type. Yet while the Lord had me using his tools, with his permission, the Lord did not have him help me at all. It was the Lord who kept telling me how to build the fixtures he wanted. And it was amazing to me how He got into the littlest things, like where to put the screws and even how to move the shelf into the best position to put the screws in. He would even explain why as He was telling me what to do. It was the littlest things like put the shelf on it's side like this which will enable you to use your right hand to put all those in and they will come out straighter.

This concept of how the Lord will help us with the littlest details in our lives by talking to us via His small voice, is perhaps one of greatest things usually not talked about from behind the podium at your church! To say that is wrong is a massive problem. Indeed I have heard people say things like, 'God would never tell you what socks to put on! It's sooooooo wrong!! If you are willing to listen and want advice on what socks to put on, He will advise you! Now He could tell you that it is not gong to make a difference today, but that does not mean on another day it might!

I was once getting ready to go to church and the Lord told me to put on this really bright Hawaiian shirt someone had gotten me. So I wore it to church only to find out that the paster had also worn an extremely bright Hawaiian shirt, and that was going to be part of his sermon that day. He had just come back from Africa where he had gotten that bright shirt and was wearing it to tell everyone about how it went and that they were doing there. And then he hung his shirt up in the church with some pictures of where they had gone. I had no idea, but when I walked into church that day he looked at me and laughed, while coming over to me to talk to me personally about the trip. So don't ever think God is not into the littlest things in your life!

Once the Lord took me to the home store to get the things I needed for the shelves He showed me in the vision that day, and then told me to get some expensive redwood trim. There was no way that went with the vision, so I asked Him why I was spending so much money for these, and He simply told me they were for the next shelf we were doing.

When you hear these seemingly random thoughts come to you like a small voice inside you, you often wonder if that could be right. Yet the next day He gave me the vision of a couple of very nice dark wood shelves set off by the redwood trim, that it turned out that He wanted for the most expensive Bibles and books I would be selling. They were going to cost more and so He wanted them on a nicer and richer looking display. There is a reason why He is called Wonderful Counselor and Wisdom in your Bible. So we should listen to Him, right?

One day He asked me to go to a city about 50 miles away. He told me that He wanted me to look at a store there. I remembered that they did have a Christian store in that town. Yet when I got there He did not take me to that store, instead He took me to another bookstore that I had no idea existed. Yet it was not a Christian bookstore. Quite the opposite, It sold all types of used books, but in the front window were crystal balls, black magic books, and the like. It was the big display nobody could miss when going into the store.

Now they had some empty shelves in the front of the store they were also selling. From what I found out from the people working there, the owner made those shelves himself, and they were what he had used for his entire store. It seems he must still be making them and selling them in his store for more sales. They were a good price and the Lord told me to try and make a deal for them. The Lord had me leave an offer for the bunch of them in the front. The owner called me back with a counter offer which the Lord wanted me to accept.

So I rented a U-Haul and went over to get the shelves, but the Lord wanted me to give them $666 for the shelves which was just slighty more than was asked for. The Lord also gave me a message to leave. The Lord wanted me to say that, "He was closing their store down and was taking these shelves with Him. If anyone else wanted to come alone that was fine with Him."

Now there are times, not many, but times when the Lord askes me to do something which seems really silly to me, and this is one of the most obvious times to me. Still, there is something about how if we are embarrassed about Him, then He will also be embarrassed about Him in front of His Father. So I try to follow through on those things in those rare times. So I drove to that store to get the shelves knowing what the Lord wanted me to say, and was not all that thrilled about it, even though I understood it was an invitation to go to a Christian church of their choosing.

So I drove to the store and back up the U-Haul. Then went into the store which had to ladies working it. I told them that I was there for the shelves, and they knew I was coming. Then I gave the girl helping me the $666. She counted it and told me that it was too much. I responded by telling her that the Lord had told me to give them that amount for the shelves and it certainly covered the price. Then I began to load up the shelves. The lady went running to the back in tears.

I was a bit surprised by the response, I really had though she might laugh at me. Yet it really hit her hard and I felt bad about it. Yet I loaded up the shelves and went to the other girl running the store who had apparently run to comfort the first girl then came back to see what was going on. Then I gave her a bit longer explanation about how I was going to use them for a Christian book store, and the full message the Lord had given me. She understood what was going on, and I left.

About six months later I went by that store and it was gone. Ironically, those same shelves wound up back in that very town a few years later and for many many years afterwards. But that is for latter.

 

[Karl Peters]

The Lord once told me, "Karl, you know it is Me when the whole world lines up with what I am saying."

Of course if you are going to open up a store you need inventory.

And so I went about hearing Him by faith, as to what and where to get the inventory I needed for the store. Now, hearing by faith is not knowing!! But when and if we start seeking Him and hearing what He tells us, then we do what He tells us, it gives Him the opportunity to show to us that He is God. And then when He does show to us that He is God, by the whole world lining up with what He is saying to us, then we know that He who was talking to us is the Word of God and God! You still have to go back to hearing by faith, because that comes before the knowing that He is God, but your faith is stronger and greater. And so was written that faith comes by hearing and hearing by a word from Jesus Christ/ God - depending on the translation you have in your bible.

Rom 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

So I again sought He daily, and listened to Him by that faith that says He is there to be heard from and things came to pass.

One thing I did was to go on the internet and look up Christian publishers, and then I asked the Lord about them. He specifically told me to go to a specific publisher. Apparently a very small publisher, by what I read. Yet He insisted I go to them, or more like him. I contacted them to find out it was pretty much just one man. He did do some publishing, mostly his books. However it also turned out that he had help a couple of other really small Christian stores get going.

He had a small warehouse in a business park, where he kept his inventory, which had a lot more than just his books. You see he had been exchanging his books with others so he could provided a service far greater than his books. So I made arrangements for him to put together a selection of his choosing, which would be good for starting a small store. And that made is easy and quick, which I needed, because since I had quit my job I needed to get open as soon as the lease and store was ready.

The Lord also wanted me to have used books, and that was a different issue. The Lord had me going on-line to buy some lots of used books. That gave me some but not that much, but it was interesting what He had me get. He had me get and interesting variety, and perhaps the most interesting little group was a horrible looking little lot of Catholic used books. They looked worthless, but He insisted I get them. They were old, in bad shape, and it looked like nobody would ever but them. And nobody ever did but any of them. Not a one of them sold!!!

Yet the whole world seem to line up with what He had said when about a year and a half later I was sitting in the store doing my accounting for the store when a single normal looking man came into the store. He very quietly and shyly seem to just be looking around the store in a strange way, almost as if he couldn't believe the store was there. I decided to just let him look around and continue with my accounting. When the Lord suddenly spoke to me saying, "Karl, that man is kind of like a pastor"

I looked up at the man who was down an isle I not that far from me and I could see down directly. Still the man seemed to be just looking but he seemed to be finding something interesting. So I again let him look, when the Lord told me again coming across a bit clearer. "Karl, that man is kind of like a pastor!"

Now I started looking at him a bit more and was wondering what the Lord was trying to tell me to do, if anything. When the Lord spoke again, "KARL, THAT MAN IS KIND OF LIKE A PASTOR!!"

So I spoke aloud to the man, "Sir - You are kind of like a pastor!!" I boldly exclaimed in that quite bookstore!

He looked up at me, now with a book in his hand, and told me calmly, "I am a Catholic priest."

"Well, that is kind of like a pastor," I said.

Now I had never ever been to a Catholic service nor attended a Catholic church. So I was a bit surprised to not see the little collar we associate we a Catholic priest. Yet it seems that I did remember that was not always the case. He was dress nice if rather plain. And he seemed to still have that puzzled looked with which he came into the store with, but even more so now. But it wasn't just due to me telling him that he was kind of like a pastor, out of know where.

He started telling me that he had always hoped to find the book in his hand, but never thought he would find it. It had been written by a once friend of his that he went to school with. He had been at the dentist a few doors down, when he noticed the store and had just felt like he needed to come in. And he found this book he had always wanted, he explained.

It was one of those really crummy looking old Catholic books that Lord insisted I buy. Indeed, there was more to the buying those books than I am explaining now, and I won't, because too many would find the whole story a bit more fantastic. Anyway, this Catholic priest looked like he had found some great treasure, but it looked like a total piece of junk to me. So he wanted to buy it, but I couldn't take money for it. Afterall it was junk as far as I was concerned, and considering what the Lord had told me and was the Lord started telling me more as the man and I talk, so there was no way I was going to accept any money for that book!

The Lord was telling me more about that man as we talked. The Lord was telling me how much he loved that man. Several times the Lord told me that. The Lord explained that the man did not operate with much power, but that he still loved Him so much that he dedicated his life to Him. So, there was no way I was going to let that Catholic priest pay for that book.

I told the priest that I had heard the Lord tell me that he was kind of like a pastor, and that the Lord was telling me how much He loved him. And so I also told him that I was not going to let him pay for that book. It was one of the many many interesting things that happened at that store, in which I saw the whole world line up with what He was saying. So I now know it was God who told me to buy those books, even those I never sold a one of them.

There is more to tell. More than I could ever tell, and some that I won't because the pigs will trample them. Yet since there are so few testimonies about the Lord, when I know there should be sooo many testimonies because that is what a Christian life is all about, I will post some more later.