A Timely Reminder that God is Never too Late

Published: 16th of June, 2023

In November 2022, I left the city of Campo Verde, Mato Grosso and boarded a bus for a five-day journey to my homeland Guyana. The reason for travel was not pure pleasure. I was compelled to do so because of financial problems. One business after the other failed causing the snowball effect. Bills started to pile up. I decided to travel back to Guyana to refinance and put myself on a different trajectory.

Related: If Your World is Falling Apart Where you Are, it May be Coming together somewhere Else. Move. Sometimes, God brings about calamities in life because he wants us in a different place. We must hear the voice of God and follow his direction.

As I left my home, I said goodbye to my wonderful next door neighbors, John and Mary (not their real names). They were such wonderful people. They always spoke so softly and pleasantly with me, and they were always so helpful, that I thought I was so fortunate to have such lovely neighbors. But something tragic happened to this wonderful couple. They were driving when an accident struck. The young man suffered a broken foot that left him unable to walk. His wife was left to work and also provide for the family. This was challenging needless to say.

Sometimes, I’m at war with God. Sometimes I just don’t get it. Why do things like these have to happen to people as good and kind as these? I trust that God knows something that I don’t.

When I arrived back in Guyana, I petitioned God daily to restore the body of the young man that he may be able to walk again normally. I reassured his wife that I was praying, and that I had strong faith that he would walk again. For months, I kept asking the young woman how her husband was doing. She kept telling that he still can’t walk, and that his injury was so bad, that he feared that he might never be able to walk again. But I kept reassuring that I was praying for him daily, and that I have strong faith that God will answer my prayers.

Then one day, the young woman told me “good news.” She said that her needed a surgery, and that they had started a fundraiser to help him get the surgery done. It was sort of like a raffle, where you bought numbers, each number costing only a few dollars, and then you stood a chance to win one of three prizes when the raffle was drawn.

I told her that I would buy 20 of those numbers as soon as I could, but that right now, I was “facing some financial difficulties.” For months, I was unable to fulfill this promise. All my bank accounts were in the negative in Brazil. I just had a few dollars in my wallet to survive. As soon as a little money came in, it was clipped off in bills.

But I kept praying for John, and I kept asking how he was doing. His wife told me he was not walking as yet, but they are hopeful that the surgery would change things. This made me feel like one of those hypocrites who is always praying for someone but would never left a finger to help. How could someone say they are praying daily for someone to recover but not put their money where their mouth is?

On the 13th of June, 2023, a few dollars remained in one of my accounts after a business transaction. I didn’t let this one slide. I bought 5 of the numbers only….costing 100 Brazilian reals. This was certainly not my style. I was the kind of guy who would easily shell out 1000 Brazilian reals for causes like these. But I reminded myself that these were not “the good old days,” and that, as ironic as it seems, I had to exercise restraint in my philanthropic activities since I genuinely didn’t have any money.

When I bought the numbers and sent the bank transfer receipt to Mary, I saw that the drawing date of the raffle was the 15th of June. I had caught it just a few hours before the fundraiser ended. This was no coincidence. For me, this was God’s friendly reminder that He is never too late. Sometimes, we may feel lost. We may wonder where God is in the middle of all this. But God is moving silently while you can’t see Him. He is shielding you from the storm. As the song goes, “when You don’t part the waters that I wish I could walk through….I will trust…I will trust…I will trust…..”