I had heard Enoch Olson’s story before about how God provided the big red truck for camp. But this weekend, when I heard it again, I realized that it wasn’t really about a big red truck.
It was 1968 or 69 when our founding director took a phone call from a church less than two hours south of camp offering the donation of the their old kitchen equipment. And so he called a friend, Mike, and set out on a Saturday in a donated 1952 Studebaker pickup to collect the gift of ovens and dishwashers and refrigerators. As they pulled out of camp, Mike commented on the state of disrepair of the truck.
But Enoch knew it was all they had, and so he said, “The Lord will get us down there, and the Lord will get us back.”
And then, about twenty miles down the road, heading up a long sloping hill, that little truck quit. And as Enoch tells it, he and Mike sat there for the longest time in dead silence. Then he turned to Mike and said, “Well, what’ll we do?”
“I think you better pray again,” Mike told him. It was an encouragement Enoch says he will never forget.
And so he asked him what they ought to pray for. “You better pray for a new truck this time.”
He didn’t ask God for better kitchen equipment, different circumstances, or any amount of money. Enoch knew the immediate need, and there in the broken down Studebaker he leaned over that steering wheel and asked God to provide a new truck that they could finish their mission that day.
Those of us who are dreamers—like Enoch Olson is—we tend to see a long ways down the road. We tend to ask for the end result, for God’s incredible provision of all that we need, beyond all we could ask or imagine. It seems bold. It seems faithful. And, perhaps, more often than not it causes us to miss the daily blessing of God’s provision in our ordinary circumstances.
After they prayed, Enoch and Mike got out of the old truck and started walking, and as they came up over the hill that had been the demise of one truck, they saw the grounds of a construction company… and a parking lot lined with trucks.
Enoch walked through the door by the sign that said “Office” and introduced himself to the owner, Mr. Shaw. And then, he says, “For the next half hour I told this gentleman that we were starting this camp for children and somebody had given us this truck that had broke down, and we were going down to get these other things that people had given us, and I would bring this man, you see, to a point that I was going to ask him for a truck, that he would give to us… and I was goin’ to lay this guilt trip on so he would not be able to say no. You know? And so I remember coming to that very punch line and I said, ‘We saw all these trucks as we came in here and we were wondering if you would give us one of those trucks.’ And he said he couldn’t give me a truck.”
But, you see, Enoch believed what he had told Mike that very morning: that the Lord would get them down there, and that the Lord would get them back. All that stood in the way was their need for a new truck.
So, he says, “We drove out of there that day with a two-and-a-half-ton flatbed, beautiful, red truck.” And they continued their mission. All the way to Greenville, Enoch said, his friend Mike just kept shaking his head because he had seen the power of God.
Some days, it seems, ministry is a long, uphill road in a run-down pickup. Sometimes we end up walking when we feel like we should be driving, and the mission for today is often more than we can carry. But, just up ahead, is God’s provision. And this is your big red truck moment.
This is your moment to believe that God can and will provide what you need today.
This is your moment to trust that God will deliver exactly what you need today.
This is your moment to walk through that door, into the office of your Mr. Shaw and boldly and courageously ask for what you need to accomplish your mission today.
Because, if God can give Enoch a truck, He can certainly give you what you need today.
God will get you there, and God will get you back.