With God’s Credit You Can Get Everything

Back in 1995, I tried to be a car sales man. I did ok, but my desire was to continue my education. I had just studied high school.  With time, the Lord gave the opportunity to go to school and finish my college education. I became a teacher. But that experience as a car sales man taught me many things. But the most important thing was that I had to keep my credit score in excellent condition to be able to get things like a car and a house. So, I did it. I always paid everything on time and ahead if possible. I knew that anybody who wanted to get a credit to get a car and had his/her credit in bad condition, better hit the road and not even ask about the credit. He/she was finished. No good credit score, no credit.

Time passed. I was doing great. I got one house. Ten years later, I sold it. I bought another house, and new cars. I had no problem getting things at a low rate because I had an excellent credit.

One day, my wife’s son, Luis, came to live with us. He came from El Salvador. My wife was excited and I with her. She started paying his college education because the kid had potential. Well, that potential he started using it for the wrong purposes. First, he applied for a credit card. He never paid it. So we started receiving calls from collectors. I asked my wife “did you get a new credit card?” “No” she replied surprised. When Luis got home we asked him and his first reaction was deny it.  So I started investigating and found that he had done it. So we told him and asked him why had he done it? Luis never had a valid answer. We explained to him that that was a crime here in the U.S. and he better not do that.  So I negotiated with the credit cards and got him out of his trouble. I lent him 2,000 dollars that up to today I never saw again. We thought it was a teenager’s mistake. We were wrong!

Then he got worse. He started stealing from people giving them false checks.  He was telling all of his friends that his mom was rich and that she would pay. So people started falling in his trickery. Until one day someone got tired of it and sent him to jail. My wife was devastated. But we went and bailed him out. We talked to him and told him not to be doing those kinds of things. So he continued in college. He did it again. Again he went to jail. I told my wife “We’re not going to bail him out this time.” He called his uncles and his uncles bailed him out. But my wife and I stopped paying his tuition so he got out of college. He started working. My wife, one more time asked me, “Can he live with us?” He had been living in college. “He does not have any place to go,” She told me. I had my doubts, but based on my Christian principles and trusting God, I agreed with my wife and let him in our house.

At work he started doing the same thing with his co-workers and with other people. One of those people sent him to jail one more time. This time nobody got him out. He spent three months in jail and a judge gave him three years of probation. He got out of jail and basically he was homeless. He seemed shaken up. It seemed he had learned his lesson. My wife, based on her motherly love, asked me one more time to let him in the house. I, based on my Christian principles, did it again. But for some reason I still don’t understand, that man could not stop being a crook.

About a year and a half had passed since the judge had given him his probation. He was also going to church. All of us thought Luis had reformed. My wife was happy. Then something terrible happened to my wife. She had a stroke, and had a brain surgery. She was ok after that. However, while she was in her most vulnerable stage when you could not get her too excited or depressed because she could have died, he did it again. This time it was against me. Luis stole my identification, social security number and other personal information and applied for three credit cards. He then went to spend almost twenty thousand dollars. I did not find out until about three months later. I could not believe he had done that. I was outraged. I started asking God, “Why me?” But I could not say anything to my wife or send him to jail because my wife could not receive such devastating news. She could have died. I talked to him and asked him “Why did you do it?” He answered me with all his arrogance, “Because I knew you could do nothing, because my mom is ill.” Then I got even angrier. I was about to call the police when he decided to tell my wife. My wife begged me not to send him to jail. I agreed only because she was still recuperating from her brain surgery. I could not do anything. I asked God, “why do you let this happen to me and tie my hands so I can’t do anything?” Somehow, I new that God was testing my faith.

Time passed, I eventually trusted God and I said to Luis, “I give you one year to pay this money.” Of course, he never paid. After a little more than a year since my wife had had her surgery, I told her. “You see my credit now is in bad condition. If I need anything, I can’t get it because it looks that I owe 20,000 dollars and I’m not paying.” So my wife tried to fix the problem with him. She went to church and asked for help. At church, there was a lawyer, who tried to help. When he sent the information to the authorities, they saw Luis had broken his probation. They caught him and sent him to prison.

 I took a car I had leased for him and continued paying it until the lease was over. But I still had the problem of the credit cards. I wrote letters of dispute to the credit cards. Two of the banks removed the information from my credit report. But one of them, the biggest one, did not. So, I still have that debt in my report. That is not the miracle, however.

When the lease was over, I needed to get another car. I had sold my old truck because we needed to pay some debt we had acquired due to my wife’s stroke. I thought, “There is no way anybody would give me a credit for a car with my credit score like mine.”  Then, something told me, "Trust God" and I remembered words from my pastor Joel Osteen, in which he said, “No weapon formed against me will prevail.” “God will take anything that was meant to harm you and use it in your favor.” That’s what my faith said. However, in reality I did not see how that could happen. Then a thought came to my mind: God has done this because he wants to make sure I know that it is Him and because of Him that I will get the things and not because of my credit. So, I started trusting God about it.

Then something unexplainable happened. Toyota, which is the brand I like, starting having some problems. The media started reporting about their accelerators, and their mats, and other problems. That changed their reputation. I had always had had Toyotas and had never had problems with them. They were trying to fix their problems and even had a Congressional hearing about it. For Toyota Corporation these were devastating news. Their sales dropped tremendously to the point that they had to start begging customers to come buy their product.

When I took the leased car back, I went to the dealer and talked to a salesman. I explained to him my situation. He went to talk to the director of sales about it. I walked around while I waited in the dealership. Then, suddenly I heard, “I know you, I remember you!”  It was the director of sales. He had been a co-worker back in 1995 when I worked as a salesman. Then, he said, “Give this man whatever he wants. Do not worry about his credit. We will make an exception.” I could not believe it! That day, I left that dealership with a brand new car. They had given me their top offer, which was 60 months at zero percent interest. On top of that I was given two years of free maintenance for being a loyal customer. With the best of my credit scores, the lowest interest rate I had been able to get was 4.5 percent. But this time it was not my credit. It was God’s credit. With His help, this time I was able to get much more than I had ever been able to get with my own means. My credit said, “Don’t even trust this man.” God was telling me “They will trust you because I am with you.”

God had shaken a global company to its knees for my benefit! He had promoted a man who had been a co-worker back in 1995. He had made the man recognized me. God let someone ruin my credit, which I had built with a lot of effort. All to demonstrate me that his deals are way better than any other deal I could have ever made. He also did it to show me that He remembers me and how important I am for Him. He did it all to demonstrate me that if we trust Him and try our best to follow His command, He takes care of us. I never turned in Luis to go to prison, based on the command that Christ has given us that we should forgive as many times as we are offended. I followed this command and God helped me in the moment I needed him the most. Nobody would have given me anything based on my credit score. The logic said NO. God said YES! Praise the Lord!

You can also have these privileges with God. He wants to helps us. Just receive Him in your heart.