We thought we had done it properly. But one day after some rain, we noticed water entirely filled the inner part of the green protective cylinder. Was it just the rain filling it or was there something more ominous occurring? I honestly didn't know. I talked to my neighbor about it and he said if there was a leak going on, you would notice it at the water meter. I am not very bright when it comes to looking at things mechanical so I went out there and removed the round cement cover and stared at the numbers on the meter. None were moving, so I assumed the water was only rain that had somehow gotten into the green protective cylinder. At the meter, I prayed that God's hand would be on this flip as I asked God, “Is there anything to be concerned about?” I was not pleased with the answer. Yes. Much later, my neighbor showed me I was looking at the wrong area on the meter. I should have been looking at a small, triangular “hand” that spins, either fast or slow, depending upon the amount of water that is being used. If no water is being used, any spinning would indicate a leak. He showed me that there, indeed, was a leak going on.

Meanwhile, we had to prepare the motor home for a short trip into town to fill the propane tanks so I let the water problem go. I really did not want to dig a big hole again. When we got back, I told my wife I wanted to pray for about 20 minutes and check with God again. Sometimes (when the answer is not what I had hoped for) I consider the fact that I was not “prayed up”. I believed it was necessary to truly release things into God's hand BEFORE the coin was flipped. Interestingly, though, in the recent past—as well as this time—God had “come through” accurately even though I wasn't as “prayed up” as I thought I should have been.

During my prayer time, I got an idea that I thought came from God. It included a way to test whether or not there was a leak in one of our PVC pipes or if the leak was in the water line, far below the ground. After my time with the Lord, I asked God, “Should I spend time on my idea?” The answer was “No.” I let my theoretical thinking go. “Should I dig the hole and check for leaking?” The answer was “Yes.” God's answer was right, of course, and He helped me save a lot of time by getting us focused on the problem area.

I found my wife and we began digging so we could expose the PVC piping so we could find the leak. I didn't want to turn off the water at the meter yet because I wanted us to first find the leak, then we'd shut off the water. As I was trying to maneuver the green protective cylinder off, however, the PVC came apart and water began bubbling up quite rapidly, gushing out the cylinder. We ran to the car and drove quickly to the meter. The little triangular hand was going so fast, it looked like a spinning propeller. We quickly shut off the water.

Later, we discovered that the cut-off at the meter itself was faulty in that, even though it was turned off, water still flowed, filling our pipes very slowly. This made it difficult to fix the pipes because the water didn't allow for proper setting of the cement. But, as it says in Romans 8:28, all things work together for good to those who love Christ Jesus. We were able to discover, because water still came through the pipes, that the pipe had broken exactly where the leak was occurring. How did we know this? When we continually siphoned water from the pipe, we saw, to our delight, that the ground around the piping dried up.

We used a wet/dry cement and, continually siphoning off the water, carefully put the fittings back together again.

Nature of God: God told us exactly what we needed to do for this plumbing problem. I didn't want to believe that we had to dig a hole again, but prayerfully flipping the coin before God (twice) revealed that we had to. In this case, as in other cases, being “prayed up” did not seem to be necessary as the answer I had received earlier, remained correct, when I prayed later.

I believe that God's hand was also involved when I broke the pipe. It broke at a place where our neighbor, weeks earlier, had sealed it using only “dry” sealant and it hadn't sealed correctly. He, however, had been unable to get the pipes apart when he had discovered the problem, so he just let it go, thinking it had sealed fine. God used my hand to break them apart easily, so they could be sealed correctly.

When I got the idea, during my prayer that I should run a test to determine where the leak was, God told me to ignore that idea. As it turned out, it would have wasted precious time. In this case, the idea I got, even though I was in prayer, turned out to be just a normal, personal idea and not an idea that came from God. One of the most difficult things for us to do is to sort out what ideas are from God, what ideas are from us and what ideas are from Satan unless it can be directly confirmed through Scripture. (Know any Scriptures about how to do plumbing work?) My conclusion, based on that occurrence, is that even in prayer we may not always receive divine inspiration. I don't believe Satan can run interference with our sincere prayers to the Lord, however, our own thoughts can still creep in, leading us up the wrong trail or wasting precious time. I still have a hunger to know, to truly discern, God's thoughts over my own. When God used the coin flip to let me know that my idea should be ignored, I was reminded, once again, of Isaiah's statement that God's ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts higher than our thoughts. I enjoyed letting my ideas go. I had increased faith in God when it turned out to be the right thing to do.