Thank You, Lord, For This Wonderful Parking Spot
People these days look too hard for the Lord, my brothers and sisters. I know that might sound strange coming from a man of the cloth, but I firmly believe that if you go through your life looking for signs of Jesus in a "big way", you'll never find him. Jesus is a lot easier to see on a lovely billboard on a Kansas highway than he is in a starving baby in Africa. That's why a smart-mouth atheist asking "Where's God when something goes wrong?" is missing the point. What you should be asking is, "What is going right that I can give the Lord credit for?"
For example, I recently found a wonderful parking space as I pulled up to the bank the other day. Now, what you have to realize about most banks is that the Lord has already blessed them by having relatively small parking lots already. There's less ground you have to use your legs to cover, so you know someone up there is looking out for you! Even better, in large parking lots, you get to use your legs a whole bunch, building up their muscles and exercising them just as God intended. In that respect, large parking lots are pretty blessed!
The point is, I was already feeling pretty lucky as I pulled into this bank's small parking lot. "Wow, Jesus," I remarked. "I'm thankful that you caused me to have to go to the bank today, and enjoy the blessing you hath made unto me: this small parking lot." The Jesus bobblehead on my dashboard -- the Lord's primary means of communication with me, although yours may be different, like a lady's bosom or a grilled cheese sandwich -- nodded in agreement (this is a big advantage of the bobblehead versus the sandwich -- Jesus can actually use it to agree with what you are saying or thinking).
I whistled a nice tune and prepared to look for a parking space. I felt just fine, and happy with what I had. And because I had this humility and modesty, I knew I would be blessed even more. Sure enough, as I swept my eye across the lot, a man on the way to park in the bank's closest space to the building suddenly had a stroke of some kind, causing him to lose control of his car and plow into an elderly woman making her way across the lot. My eye twinkled as I saw the empty space. Jesus had struck again!
"Oh my God," moaned the woman as I whistled my tune and eased my car past the scene. "Oh, Jesus, help me."
"Sorry, ma'am," I said, creeping into the space. "He's busy with me!" The bobblehead nodded happily as I threw the car into park. Just like that, a blessing from the Lord -- the small bank parking lot -- had turned into an outright bounty. All I had to do was walk six or seven steps, and I was inside the bank. It was truly a spectacle to behold the glorious hand of Jesus.
"How could an atheist deny this?" I wondered aloud to a fellow bank customer, who was sprinting past me towards the outside in an awful hurry. "How can you spend time wasting your God-given brains and heart wondering about starving kids or Hitler or whoever when I am standing here inside this bank on this beautiful day, with my car in the best parking spot in the whole lot?"
The man never replied. He was most likely running outside to get back to his car and get back to his business, which is another problem in today's world that contributes to Godlessness: people just don't slow down and take the time to notice Jesus lurking all around them, hiding in the bushes or in your closet, like a friendly prowler who only wants to steal your heart.
I have a simple point to make, my e-congregation: you need to make more time to examine the things God is doing for you, instead of picking apart everything He isn't doing for everyone else. Since when is your personal belief in something about the welfare of other people? That's why just because someone else didn't get the best parking spot at the bank doesn't mean God doesn't exist. Obviously, He does exist, because I got that spot. And sooner or later, you will, too. Even if you are gunned down by neo-Nazis before that ever has a chance to happen, I promise you, you will, too.
