For twenty years I worked as a salesman, spending many hours in the car traveling from client to client and from city to city. Often I would listen to Bible teachers on the radio as I drove. One morning while listening to J. Vernon McGee, I stopped at a traffic light behind a dirty transfer truck. I noticed someone had written the word “test” in the dust on its pull down door. As I read the word, I had that inner sense the Lord was speaking to me. I knew a test was imminent and the Lord was alerting me so I could pass it. At that very moment, J. Vernon quoted Isaiah 46:1-4 and then followed it with his own commentary. This is what he said:
“Bel bows down, Nebo stoops; their idols were on the beasts and on the cattle. Your carriages were heavily loaded, a burden to the weary beast.
They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but have themselves gone into captivity.
Listen to Me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been upheld by Me from birth, who have been carried from the womb:
Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”
Then J. Vernon said, “Many people try to carry and support God. The heathen carry their idols and are greatly burdened by them just as the prophet Isaiah reports. But the true God wants to carry us even to our old age, to our gray hairs. Yes, He wants to carry us. Will we let Him? This is the test!”
At this time my wife, Donna, was pregnant with our fourth child. In the third month of pregnancy her water broke in the middle of the night. Realizing this could be the beginning of a miscarriage, we began to ask the Lord for His help. Donna went to her doctor the next morning, and although the tests indicated she had lost amniotic fluid in the night, measurements showed that her uterus was the correct size for this stage of her pregnancy. Having no medical explanation, the perplexed physician suggested that perhaps she had wet the bed!?! We knew better. This was our fourth pregnancy and Donna knew the difference between urinating and her water breaking. Miraculously the child’s protective sack was still intact.
From time to time during the remainder of the pregnancy, Donna and I dealt with nagging thoughts concerning the welfare of this unborn child. The enemy tried to use a very positive experience I had with the Lord several years before to fuel that anxiety. In 1973, the Lord prophetically revealed to me that I would have three sons. While on a ministry trip abroad He simultaneously dropped into my heart two different Bible references; 1 Chronicles 2:27 and Genesis 29:34. The content of both verses was unfamiliar so I looked them up immediately. Here is what they said:
“The sons of Ram, the firstborn of Jerahmeel, were Maaz, Jamin, and Eker” (1 Chronicles 2:27).
“She conceived again and bore a son, and said, ‘Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.’ Therefore his name was called Levi” (Genesis 29:3-4).
Both scriptures record the birth of three sons. The first one stated that these three sons were born to a man named Ram. My initials are R.A.M. and so I concluded that in a most unusual way, the Lord used these two scriptures to reveal to me that I too would have three sons. There is also some Biblical support for this interpretation. In Genesis 41:32 Joseph understood that having the same dream repeated twice (or in my case the same revelation) indicated that “…the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass.” At the time of the revelation I was single, but in September of 1976 I married Miss Donna Wilson, and by July of 1983 our third son was born. It took seven years for this word to be fulfilled.
Since the Lord had not spoken to me about this fourth child, the enemy tried to convince me this baby would not make it. After the night the water broke, my wife and I committed our unborn child to the Lord and continued to pray for her welfare. We were in the test. Then on July 17, 1985 the Lord spoke to me prophetically. He encouraged me about some particular business problems and then ended with these words, “…and as you rest and trust in Me so shall your child be born without a hitch.”
On August 11, 1985 Mary Kathryn McMillan was born in perfect condition. The Lord promised to carry us even to our old age. Not only had He carried us through this test, but He enabled Donna to carry Katy full term. Yes, our God wants to carry us!