Chris Shields of Eliot, Maine was perusing newspaper ads recently when he found a coupon for $200 off a new car. Shields read the coupon carefully and noticed nothing about the coupon being limited to one per customer. He took the rest of the day, bought 200 newspapers, and clipped the ads from every one.

On January 4th, Shields packed the coupons into a briefcase, and went shopping for a car. He picked out a silver 2002 Toyota Sequoia with a price of $42,000, then presented his coupons as payment for the vehicle.

The dealership refused the offer. When Shields insisted they take the coupons, the dealer suggested that Shields find a lawyer. Jim Boyle, the owner of the dealership said, Shields would not be getting a car with coupons. He added, “The ad ran as it was supposed to run, and there was nothing misleading or deceptive about it. No reasonable person could possibly expect to piggyback coupons like that and walk away with a new car.”

Shields does not plan to hire a lawyer, but says he contacted the state attorney general’s consumer protection division. Boyle checked with the attorney general’s office also. He was told, Shield’s case “has no legs to it at all.”

—http:// story.news.yahoo.com, Tuesday, Jan.14, 2003. Man Uses Coupons to Try to Buy Car. Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell.

I don’t know if Shields seriously thought he’d get away with driving away a new pickup in exchange for 42K worth of coupons or not, but this story does remind me of a scriptural principal—man’s will doesn’t always prevail, but God’s will does.

Proverbs 19:21 “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

School officials at O'Brien Middle School in Reno, Nevada planned to reward their top students with a trip to Six Flags Marine World in Vallejo, California. They lined up four buses to make the four-hour trip to Northern California. When the students arrived at the park they found the gates locked tight. No one had thought to check the theme park's schedule before planning the outing.

Though students will get another trip later in the month, a district official called the event a fiasco. The school principal said, "somebody should have checked."

http://www.fox6.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=AB1E7FC5-B201-41FF-AB66-05816B2012C3. Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell.

Proverbs 20:18 (NIV) "Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain guidance."

One tiny mouse upset the plans of hundreds of people by grounding a Qatari airliner for hours while engineers tried to capture the rodent. The Qatar Airways jet was preparing for take-off from Manila, Philippines when a crewmember spotted a mouse scampering across the aisle in economy class cabin. The captain ordered the passengers to disembark while maintenance staff fumigated the aircraft and set traps.

The plane finally took off 13 hours later, but crews never found the mouse. Presumably, it was still on board somewhere, dead or alive. Airport Operation chief Octavio Lina told a local newspaper, "There was an incident before with a cockroach, but it's the first time that we had to deal with a mouse."

—Reuters, Elusive Mouse grounds Qatari airliner for 13 hours, September 28, 2005. Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell.

Proverbs 16:1 (GW) "The plans of the heart belong to humans, but an answer on the tongue comes from the Lord."

While the rest of Europe suffers under a record heat wave, one British man has been diagnosed with a case of frostbite. 46 year-old Mike Ball literally froze his foot, driving 250 miles with his toes too close to the air conditioning vent in his car.

Ball says, “It was incredibly hot. I slipped off my shoe and sock because my car is an automatic and I don’t need to use my left foot.” He adds, “I didn’t realize anything was wrong until the next day when my foot was extremely painful.”

One of Ball’s toes started to turn black and another was blue. He went to his doctor who diagnosed mild frostbite. Ball is expected to make a full recovery.

.Proverbs 14:12 NIV “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.”

An unexpected defect turned a scheduled demolition into a near disaster. A 275-foot smokestack at an old Ohio power plant that was being demolished fell the wrong direction, sending spectators scrambling, knocking down 12,000-volt power lines, and damaging a building containing backup generators. There were no reported injuries after the tower at the 83 year-old Mad River Power fell to the southeast rather than east during demolition. Officials say the accident did knock out electrical power for about 4,000 customers due to the downed lines.

Lisa Kelly, president and owner of the Idaho-based demolition company, which handled the stack’s destruction, said all the explosives went off according to plan, but an undetected crack on the south side of the tower pulled it in a different direction. Kelly told reporters, “Nobody’s happy with things that go wrong in life, and sometimes it’s out of our hands and beyond anybody’s prediction.” She said “We’re all extremely thankful no one was injured.”

Tower tumbles wrong way during Ohio demolition;

--http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101111/ap_on_re_us/us_demolition_debacle; November 11, 2010, Illustration by Jim L. Wilson and Jim Sandell.

Proverbs 16:1 (GW) “The plans of the heart belong to humans, but an answer on the tongue comes from the LORD.”

In the Disney animated film Frozen, Olaf the snowman sings a song explaining how he longs for summer and all the wonderful things he has heard about the warmer season. His desire is to experience another season of the year and to feel the warmth of the sun.

Everyone knows exactly what will happen to Olaf if he ever gets his wish. There is a line in the song he sings, “Winter’s a good time to stay in and cuddle, but put me in summer and I’ll be a happy …..” The rhyming word is puddle. Olaf does not realize he will not be a happy snowman, he will be a puddle. Snowmen do not survive in spring, let alone summer.

Olaf is experiencing what many humans experience. Thinking that we know what is best for us and the desire to have that which we have not been given. Only the Lord knows what is best for us. He has a plan for each and every one of our lives. -- Jim L. Wilson and Gay Williams

Jeremiah 29:11-14 (HCSB) For I know the plans I have for you”—?this is? the LORD’s declaration—“plans for ?your? welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. (12) You will call to Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. (13) You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. (14) I will be found by you”—?this is? the LORD’s declaration—“and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and places where I banished you”—?this is? the LORD’s declaration. “I will restore you to the place I deported you from.”

According to the Transportation Security Administration, “Virtually all passengers wait less than 30 minutes in standard checkpoint lines, and 99.6% of TSA PreCheck members waited less than 10 minutes in line.” However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions. Merinda Edmonds has PreCheck status, her mother does not. At the checkpoint, they went their separate ways, and her mother made it through the regular security line faster than Edmonds did.—Jim L. Wilson

What is that old saying, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.”

James 4:13–17 (CSB) “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes.’ Instead, you should say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’ But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it.”