You have not because you ask not

I recently heard a story.

A friend had been receiving phone calls to his cell phone and it was the wrong number. It was a collection agency trying to get a hold of a customer who was behind on their car payments. The collection agency kept calling. I suppose they thought my friend was lying about it being a wrong number or something. Well, my friend decided that since they kept calling, he would go ahead, take the calls as this person and see about getting some grace on this loan for the person. He figured it wasn't going to cost HIM anything, why not? I don't know exactly what happened, but it made me think. Why do I get fearful and intimidated whenever I'm on the phone with these people? It's crazy, I tell you.

Today I checked our bank balance online. Yesterday we had purchased tickets for the family to attend a Morningstar Conference and 2 hotel rooms. Cost a pretty penny, but it was a good price, considering. Anyway, I realized that there wasn't quite enough in the bank to cover it. So I had to write a check from another account we have to cover it. When I checked the bank yesterday, the charges had not gone through. I checked today and the deposit was listed first, but then the bank charged us, 4 times, NSF fees of $25 each! So, I thought, why not call and see about getting the charges reversed? What can that hurt? So I did. The gentleman I spoke with put me on hold, came back and said, "I went ahead and reversed the charges." Cool.

I figured, let's see what my mortgage company will do for me. We have been paying our payments the month the payment is due, but after the grace period. I wanted to see about getting the due date moved from the 1st to the 20th. Unfortunatley, I was unable to make this happen. I did find out, though, that it does not affect our credit when we are late, as long as we pay that month. That's helpful since we are working on getting that fixed up. The $65 late fee a month is hurting a bit, though. Maybe one day, soon, we can get caught up. But the important issue to remember is that I got brave and called to see if it could happen. I was nice on the phone and not intimidated. It was a great feeling. :)

Now, I know that in the context of James 4:2, James is letting us know that we need to ask God with correct motives and not to be greedy. And I don't believe I was being greedy. ;)