Hi brothers and sisters,
I'd like to share a short testimony about what happened this week in my life. It was a very important step towards my professional career, I joined the US Army as an Apache Longbow Armament/Electrical/Avionics Repair/Tech guy and this was a longing desire in my heart for a long time, not only aviation but also military...
I was scheduled to take the ASVAB test on the 21st and I have been studying for the past 3 weeks (like crazy, I have probably gone over and solved 2000+ questions) ...
I am an ex-muslim and in that culture, we were brought up believing the hardwork toward a goal. So even though I have been a Christian for a couple years now, I still get those ugly thoughts from the past experiences. We used to believe that we had to study and work hard for our goal, I mean REAL HARD and then we could have the face to pray to allah that he will help us. If we didn't study hard enough, allah wouldn't help us because we wouldn't deserve it. I must confess I prepared to the test in this attitude. Since I wanted to be in a hi-tech/top-notch job field, I had to prepare for sections in the test that I have never seen before. And the qualifying scores were really high for the aviation jobs in the Army. I thought that I hadn't been studying hard enough so I was not going to get what I wanted... Only thing that was different than my muslim life, this time I prayed to Lord Jesus and told him that I didn't study enough, I have done all I could and let HIS WILL BE DONE!
Before the test started, I was alone in the computer room and I was sitting in front of the computer which was showing me the instructions to take the test... I prayed one more time and I said "Jesus, Lord, you are here, your hand is on my shoulder, we are going to do this together" The test started out good, I believe I got all the math-arithmetic-science sections right, but then technical section started and I got devastated because there were questions I have never seen before in my life. All I could do was to take an educated guess. I even ran out of time in the mechanical section.
So, totally bummed, I finished the test and went back to our hotel room. I called my wife, she wasn't home so I left her a message saying that I didn't do that good, that I don't have much hope to get the score I aimed for, and I could at least be done with the medical test and come back home empty handed until I can take the test for the second time. See, I totally forgot about Jesus, forgot about my trust I put in Him before the test.
The next morning, I was prepared for the bad news... We all walked in the Army Liason office and the Recruiting commander saw my last name on my name tag, recognized me instantly (they have been following me and my plans in the Army) and said " Yasar, you smoked the test buddy" I was like "What? You're kidding!" "No" he said "Here you got a 95 (top score being 99) you got in the top 5% in the nation" I was still in shock ... I wanted to see the scores paper and there it is, I got TOP line scores!
Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Matt 17:20
I was SO ASHAMED of myself. I trusted in Him but I forgot all about it. He proved me once more that He listened to my prayer, He was with me, opened the way before me, and even though I felt I wasn't prepared well enough, He gave me the best score.
Give thanks and praises to our LORD & SAVIOR, This LOVING AWESOME GOD!