It has been a rough couple of months for the Koch household. In August our air conditioning quit. Turned out the unit needed to be replaced. We knew that was coming eventually and had planned for it financially. What was not so great was the fact that it took nine days to diagnose and repair the system. That's nine days without AC during a hot Florida summer. Fortunately, we had earned enough points to stay in a hotel during that time. Thirty-six hours after our new AC unit was installed our residence experienced a significant power loss. We weren't completely without electricity, but lights dimmed, some appliances would not run, and yes, our AC unit stopped working. It took an electrician, the local power company and almost twenty-four hours to determine that the 220-volt feed to our house had failed and to get the power fully restored. Once that was taken care of, we needed our dishwasher repaired since it had quit working around the same time the AC went out. Also looming over our heads was the knowledge that critters had taken up residence in the attic and we needed our exterminator to come take a look at that issue. In order to give us a little rest from the madness, we waited a couple of weeks before having them come out to seal up our house and set traps. Do you want to guess what happened the day the exterminator came over to do the work? Yep! The AC quit working again. Needless to say, I was over it. So this is how it all went down. I came home from work and was going about my business when I began to realize it was a bit warm. I checked the thermostat and, despite being set to 75, the current temperature was reading 80. The "cooling" indicator and fan light were both on, however, I did not feel any air blowing from the vent. I checked both the blower unit and compressor and confirmed that neither was running. I tried flipping the breakers on the electric panel. Nothing. I climbed up in the attic to see if any wires were obviously loose or disconnected. Everything seemed fine. Despite it being after hours, I left messages with both the AC company and the pest company (to check if the exterminator noticed anything or pulled any wires when they were in the attic). Finally, Deborah and I packed up our things and drove off to spend yet another night at our "summer home", also known as the Comfort Suites. I had several concerns. One was that I had no idea what was wrong nor who I needed to call to look at the system. Was it an issue with the new AC unit? Was there a problem with the electrical box? Could our house wiring be bad? Another concern was timing. I had family coming over in less than two days to stay the weekend. Would a representative from the AC company be able to get out to our house in a timely manner? (Previous experience said "no.") Would he determine that the issue was not an AC problem, requiring me to call out an electrician and delay the repair further? I was frustrated and wanted to complain to my wife, saying, "I'm ready for all this to be over! I just want everything to work!" I didn't, however, because that would be pointless grumbling which solved nothing except making my wife feel hopeless because she didn't have any solutions and probably felt exactly the same way I did. What I did do, however, was pray. First, I prayed to God to help me keep an even temper and refrain from fits of anger. (Smart move.) Next, I prayed that the AC would "miraculously" be healed and start working again on its own. (That didn't happen.) As the evening ended and turned into morning my prayers shifted to a fast response time by the AC company and, ultimately, that the problem would be fixed before my family arrived. Arriving home the next morning I found everything the same as I left it and I had yet to hear from the AC company. I was about to call them again when I suddenly had an idea. For no conscious reason, I pulled out my phone and did a search for "thermostat working but no AC". At the top of the list of returns was a video that went through steps a homeowner can take to troubleshoot an air conditioning system. About halfway through, the instructor mentioned a small 3 amp fuse that was housed within the blower unit itself. I popped the panel off my unit, located the fuse, and, lo and behold, the thing was blown. Hopeful that I had found the problem I jumped in my car and headed off to Home Depot. While I knew replacing the fuse might not completely solve the issues (a short in the wires could simply blow the new fuse), I did raise my voice up to God in praise. "God, you are amazing!" No, that wasn't completely appropriate. God is amazing regardless of whether or not my AC was fixed. "God, this is incredible!" No. Once again God is sovereign and can do anything; therefore, my situation was certainly credible. Finally, I lifted up the only prayer that was applicable in this instance. "God. Thank you!" As it turns out, the fuse alone was enough to get everything working again. Additionally, I think I found what might have caused the fuse to blow in the first place. However, my most important take away from this experience was that once again God responded to my prayers, the heart of which was to restore my air conditioning in a timely manner. "Now hold on a sec," I hear some of you skeptics say. "Just because you found a video that helped you fix your AC doesn't prove God answered your prayer." And I would say you are correct; that alone doesn't prove God answered my prayer. However, as I've written before, it certainly doesn't disprove it either. In fact, though the evidence, in this case, is indeed minuscule, it is more than enough to keep the door propped open for God's intervention. I believe God, at that exact moment, planted the thought in my head to search for a solution. Up to that point, I hadn't thought of it and I have no recollection of anything happening to nudge me in that direction. No new information. No thoughts of a previous time that I referenced YouTube in regards to home repairs. Furthermore, the idea that God directs our thoughts is found throughout scripture. There is instance upon instance where the minds of nations, rulers, and individuals are directed by God's will. [1] David even prays for God to change his thoughts when realizes they have gone astray (Ps. 51:10). Fixing my air didn't move mountains. It didn't cure cancer, hold back floodwaters, or bring about world peace. But that doesn't mean God's hand wasn't involved. People are often looking for God in the "big things" and when they fail to see Him they wonder where He is, why He isn't involved, or if He even exists. The reality is that God is involved in the "big things," but is working in many different "little ways." Before we are able to recognize God in the extraordinary, perhaps we need to train ourselves to seek Him in the ordinary. But I'll save that until my next post . . .  

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[1] Isaiah 10:5-19 is a great demonstration of this. God sends Assyria to plunder the godless nations, comparing them to a rod or staff in His hands. Yet, as man tends to do, the Assyrian rulers boast in their victory as if all the planning and execution were their own. God has to remind them who was really in charge. "Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?/As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood!" (v.15) [Thanks to the Asbury Bible Commentary on Isaiah 10:5-19. ]