Sometimes God Speaks In Such An Obvious Manner Even I Get It

Last night I was coming home from Greenville and stopped to get gas in Columbia. It had been a long day of visiting clients and making cold calls, and I just wanted to get home, take a hot shower and watch the Tarheels and Blue Devils go at it. I filled my car up, and as I was about to drive off, I noticed a young man with a gas can asking another customer for help filling it up. This guy was tatted up. I'm talking more face tattoos than Mike Tyson. I watched for a few seconds the reactions of the other patrons. In that moment, I felt impressed that I should help him. A nudge from God, if you will. Nah, I told myself, that other guy will help him. It's probably just a scam I thought. Best to not get involved. So off I drove, the guy getting smaller in my rear view mirror the further I drove, while the sense that I should turn around to help kept getting more burdensome. But I'm stubborn. I hit the entrance ramp to I-20 to Florence thinking that probably wasn't God's will for me to help that young man. He looked a little sketchy anyway. The license plate of the first car I passed stopped me cold. It was "GODSWIL". You gotta be kidding me. That voice in my head said, "So I really had to spell it out for you, huh?".  Needless to say I got off the next exit and made my way back towards the gas station. I was kind of hoping that I'd get back and he'd be gone, but sure enough, I see him with the gas can. I drive up next to him. "What's the story, man?"  He points to a beat up Explorer and tells me that he and his 3 friends are headed down to Savannah but they ran out of money because they had to pay for some car repair. "Did the guy in the car you were waiting on fill your gas can up?" I ask. He tells me no and that people don't seem to be too helpful or interested in helping him. Maybe that's because you look like you'd bite Mike Tyson's ear off, I thought. I ask him his name. Evan, he tells me. I relate the story of me seeing him while I was filling up and feeling impressed to help him but driving off anyway. He laughed when I told him about seeing the license plate. I could tell Evin was somewhat amazed at the sequence of events that led up to my return.   You don't mind filling up the gas can, he asked. Nah man, I say.   I can't explain it, but in that moment, i knew I was supposed to fill the SUV up.  After that license plate, I'm done arguing. I tell him to pull the Explorer to the pump, and I fill it up.  I tell Evan that I am not a perfect Christian but that I try to listen when God tells me to help someone, though sometimes I do require an occasional license plate with a message from God. I have some leather study Bibles in the trunk from our last Bibles for Athletes event. I ask Evan and his 3 friends in the car if they'd like a Bible. Don't feel obligated I tell them. Just take one if you want one.   Evan walks with me to get the Bibles out the trunk of my car. That's a sick Challenger, he says. Thanks, I respond. I'm not promising that God will bless you with a Challenger, I say, but if you do what God says, He will bring you good things in life. We shook hands, he grabbed a Bible for himself and his friend who said she'd like one, and I wished him a safe trip.  This time the ride home was less eventful: no more license plates with reprimands from God. I said a quick prayer that Evan would realize that God was infinitely concerned with his well being. So much so that He would use something as crazy as a license plate to compel me to turn around to help him. If you don't mind, say a prayer for Evan. I have the unmistakeable feeling that God is going to do amazing things in him and through him.