Dr Adrian Bury's blog
Christian theology, basic teachings, apologeticsHow God has intervened in my life
I have been reminded recently of how many times God has intervened to solve an impossible situation in my life, and always in a way I could not have imagined. Here are a few of the most memorable.
1981. I lived and worked in Hungary, for the first time, from autumn 1980 till the end of 1981. In the summer of 1981 I had just enough money to buy a plane ticket home to see my fiancée, and some Hungarian colleagues from the university were driving to England to a conference and would have brought me back. As it turned out, however, there was no room for me in the car after all, so I was stranded. We prayed about it, and it turned out that one of the missionaries from the society where my fiancée worked was moving back from Vienna, and her brother was driving out in a van to get her stuff. I therefore got a free lift to Vienna, and it was just a short, and cheap, train ride from there back to Budapest.
1982-83. After I returned from Hungary, and got married, I could not get a job, but I was entitled to one year’s unemployment benefit from when I had worked two years earlier. I had several interviews, but no job. I then got an interview at the University of Bangor, North Wales, but did not really have much hope. I was offered the job at the end of the interview, but it was only for one year. We moved to Wales, and I started in January as my dole ran out in December. The job was then renewed from year to year, so I stayed for seven and a half years until I left to go to Bible College.
1980s sometime. We had ended up in debt and then attended a Full Gospel Businessmen’s dinner where they offered to pray for people in debt. We got prayer and mentioned the specific sum of ₤350. The next day my wife phoned me at work, having received an unexpected insurance premium repayment and a gift from some friends. The two cheques together added up to exactly the above amount.
1980s sometime. I was driving my motorbike to work along a very narrow lane in the Welsh hills. As I came round a corner, there was a minibus coming the other way, taking up the whole road. There was just a narrow strip of grass at the edge with a ditch on the other side. I shouted for Jesus, and headed for the grass. I did not go into the ditch and I did not hit the bus, and it really felt like a miracle at the time, though it all happened so fast. Several years later I told the story to one of the new converts in our house group, and it turned out he was the driver of the minibus!
1989. Having been prompted by the Lord in several ways to move back to Hungary, we were preparing to go to Bible College to get trained. The college was in Eastern England, about 350 miles from where we lived in North Wales. My job contract expired at the end of June, and I decided not to accept renewal but to go to college, starting in September. We put the house on the market, but were unable to find a buyer. We also got into debt, as I could only find a bit of casual work. We had found a house to rent in Retford, but decided to cancel as it looked like we would be unable to move. At our final house group meeting on the Thursday before college would have started the following week, several things happened all at once. We had one phone call from a friend of a friend who offered to rent the house from us with immediate effect, another call from the father of one of my wife’s work colleagues who offered to pay the first term’s college fees for me, and I then phoned the Retford landlady and she said the house was still available. So we packed up and moved in just a few days, and started college after all.
1992. Just to mention that there are tests and trials too. My wife Janet was killed in a car crash when I was in my second year of college, so after I finished I decided, and was advised, not to move to Hungary at once, but to go back to Wales for a while and recover. I managed to rent a house in Amlwch where I could help with a church plant from the Bangor AOG (our church home since we originally moved to Wales.). I then started looking for jobs. I applied for everything I could think of, which was not much. The resources were dwindling again by this time. One day when I was in Bangor, I ran into an old colleague from the university days, and we had coffee together. He had since become involved in a materials research institute, and he offered me some casual work, which soon turned into a full time job. I was able to work then until I left for Hungary.
1994. I was planning to move to Hungary, as I felt God prompting me again, but as I only had a low wage, I had got into debt again. I asked for prayer at church one Sunday, and mentioned I needed about ₤4,000 to clear the debt and finance the move. The following day, the head of the institute came to see me, said my immediate boss had resigned, and offered me his job, provided I stayed till the end of the particular project we were working on. This would have been about 18 months, by which time my step son would also be old enough to be left on his own. The promotion gave me a wage rise of ₤4,000 a year.
1995. I finally just got on a plane and came to Hungary in October 1995. I tried to find what God wanted me to do, but it was hard to make any progress. I had little chance of getting work or a residence permit. I then ran into someone in Veszprém who had belonged to a little prayer group I was involved with the early 80s, when I first lived here. She was by now an accountant, and suggested I found my own company, which would mean I could work legally and get a permit. It was a very long procedure, but I just took it step by step and it all worked out. I am still working here on that basis.
1990s sometime. On a trip back to England I was travelling by train from Bangor to London to get the plane back to Hungary from Heathrow. I had got the earliest train, but calculated I would get to the airport with an hour to spare. The train from Bangor was delayed, however, so I missed the connection at Crew and had to get a later train. This would mean I got to the airport five minutes after the plane had left. I was really praying and thinking alternately that I would be stranded at the airport, or God would do a miracle and delay the plane. When we stopped at Watford station, I looked out the window and saw a sign “bus link to Heathrow airport”. I grabbed my luggage, jumped out the train, and caught the bus ten minutes later (they only ran ever hour, so that could have been a disaster too!). I thus got to the airport by a route I had not known about, and had about three quarters of an hour to spare to catch the plane.
2003. I was needing to replace my car at this time, but had no funds. I prayed about it, and God had someone give me a cash gift, I have forgotten who, and someone I had known at Bible College in England phoned to offer me a very well paid interpreting job in Budapest for a week. A combination of the two sums was enough for me to change the car.
2005. Once again I had no money, no work as all my former sources had dried up, and debts to pay. God first told me to start telling people about all the former times he had provided (i.e. the above) and to praise him in all circumstances. I then got a phone call from a lady doctor I knew slightly, she belonged to another church group. She suggested I phone a language school in another town, as one of their native English teachers had just left. They were very happy to offer me all kinds of work from that point, teaching, translation, proof-reading and interpreting. I am still working for them.
2009. I am now getting into a similar situation, little work available.
Many of the above are about financial provision. There have been many other things, of course, like seeing people saved, healed, and filled with the Spirit, but that is another story. I should also mention that we also gave people money when we had it, when God told us to, and when we saw the need. But I don’t like to boast about that.
As far as finances are concerned, it appears God has always provided “opportunity”. Sometimes it has been actual money, other times, the work has been available so I could earn it. But he has always been there is some way or another!
