"Praying in the Gas"
I found a part time job transferring Ryder Trucks around the state. This paid really good money, and I got to travel all over Montana seeing the state. Often, I would go to pick up a truck and it would not have enough gas to get back to Bozeman. Short on cash myself, I would just pray the truck in.
This had been an all too frequent habit of mine when driving my car. Always playing it too close and asking God to bail me out.
On one occasion, I stopped just west of Butte as I was running much later than I thought I would be. I called Lori to let her know I was running late, was on the other side of Butte, and would be home in a couple of hours. I was out of cash again and getting pretty low on gas, but I took off as usual praying in the gas.
A few minutes later, I was approaching Butte when all of a sudden, I looked around and could not figure out where I was. I kept looking for a sign, or landmarks to tell me where I was, when I saw the town of Belgrade off to my left. I was totally shocked.
It just did not seem this could be real. Had I driven ninety miles in over an hour without remembering having done so at all? I kept going the rest of the way to Bozeman, about ten more miles. I parked the truck, got my car, and went home, about five miles away.
When I got home, as I walked in the door, it startled Lori as she was shocked to see me. She exclaimed that I had tricked her. I asked how so. She stated that she thought she had a couple of hours before I would be home after my call, but as I had taken only thirty minutes, she thought I had pulled a prank on her.
A month or so later the owner of rental shop where I worked transferring Ryder Trucks, called me yelling at me. He was so upset I couldn’t even understand what he was saying. I asked him to slow down a bit. He did and explained they had been trying to figure out how I was draining the gas from the trucks after dropping them off.
He stated that the last thirty trucks or so didn’t have enough gas in them to even start up in the morning. He thought for sure I was pulling a prank on them, and they were trying to figure out how I was doing it, without leaving any evidence of how.
I explained to him that many times, they would not have enough gas in them to get me back to Bozeman, I was low on cash, and I had prayed them in. I apologized for not praying for enough gas so they would startup in the morning though. He was a bit unnerved but started providing funds in advance for our trips.