Amazing what a difference day
makes, triple digits yesterday, 20 degrees cooler today. Much more comfortable.
Poor Rich, after having Carla’s
car for several weeks – working on it, can’t get it fixed so set it aside to
look at later hoping something would come to mind, he finally got it back to
us. He thought it was fixed, and when I
drove it I thought it was fixed, but when Carla drove it we had a problem.
Took it back and he finally
found the final thing that needed to be done.
This is the first time I have
seen him confused about a car. He is
good. He has good mechanics and for all
of them to be befuddled says something.
He even took it over to Toyota who did a diagnostic check (their
equipment is brand specific and much more expensive that Rich’s and he usually
doesn’t need that sophisticated of a diagnosis.) They had assured him that replacing a certain
part would fix the problem, he told them replace it – it didn’t make a
difference – their charge for the diagnosis and part was 20% of Rich’s total
bill which included some high cost items – they did need to be replaced, it just
wasn’t enough to fix the problem.
It is just a few of the reasons
I prefer Rich, he is honest, he is fair and he isn’t going to steer us
wrong. He did more detective work and
found, after a few more hours, a small leak in a vacuum hose. It is now running well.
Psalm 105:17-22 He sent a man before
them, even Joseph, who was sold for a
servant:
18 Whose feet they hurt
with fetters: he was laid in iron:
19 Until the time that his
word came: the word of the Lord tried
him.
20 The king sent and loosed
him; even the ruler of the people, and let him go
free.
21 He made him lord of his
house, and ruler of all his substance:
22 To bind his princes at
his pleasure; and teach his senators wisdom.
Bad things happen to us that
creates great turmoil in our lives and those of friends and relatives. We feel overwhelmed with uncertainty, we
don’t know what to do – we see no way out of our circumstance and wonder
why.
I cannot imagine being a young
man thrown into a pit by my brothers and left for dead. Then, a brother shows up – I think I am
rescued but I am sold into slavery instead.
He must have felt, How can I believe that God has my best interests at
heart, it is as if I am cast off and He doesn’t care, my family doesn’t care, I
am forced to do work for room and board, neither of which is what I want? That would have been my questions.
Yet, we know the story of
Joseph, God had a plan. God used him to
save both his and many other Jewish families.
What would have happened had he
given up? Had he cursed God and refused
to talk with Him? We don’t know because
neither happened.
All through our lives we will
have trials; some large, some small.
There are times we will feel like we are all alone, like God just doesn’t
care anymore. Sometimes those trials are
of our own making where our decisions were not good and we made poor
choices. Other times, like Joseph, we
are a victim of circumstances which are far beyond our control.
But God is in control and
whether the situation is something we caused or came about through no fault of
our own, He can use us if we keep our hearts focused on Him.
God uses our circumstances to
teach us, to allow Him to do a work in us, so that HE will be glorified. We all too often think it is about us, when
in reality we are His tool, His resource to proclaim His Love to others and
point the way to salvation.
Joseph knew that:
Genesis 45:7-9 And God sent me
before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a
great deliverance.
8 So now it was not you
that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord
of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of
Egypt.
9 Haste ye, and go up to
my father, and say unto him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, God hath made me lord of
all Egypt: come down unto me, tarry not:
So now it
was not you that sent me hither, but God:
It may not be easy for us. But if we keep Christ in our heart and
continue to worship and praise God, His Holy Spirit will refresh our spirit and
give us peace and joy as He places His mighty arms about us.
We plan, we work hard to make
the plan work, but if God isn’t in the middle of those plans we work for
naught. We are in His Hands and we must
relinquish control of our will to His.
It isn’t easy, because we often travel as if in a fog, with just the next
few feet visible to us.
On Highway 197 between the
junction of Hwy 97 and Maupin there frequently is fog. At night you can hardly see, you can barely
see the side of the road, let alone the road in front of you.
You learn to drive with your
lights on low beam and slow down to just a very few miles per hour, 10 maybe
15. You hope that cars behind you are
paying attention and will see your tail lights before they hit you – and those
are visible but for a very short distance.
Immediately you tense up. Usually we traveled in this mess at night and
oncoming cars were almost upon us before we could see them. You know the road, you know where you are
going, but you are not confident, every nerve in your body is on alert and
waiting in case you have to avoid another vehicle or an animal – and there won’t
be much time to react.
I don’t know how many times a
car has come up behind me and tried to ‘push’ me into going faster – I am
familiar enough with the road that I can kinda figure out where I am and where I
might be able to pull to the right to let them pass and do so at the first
opportunity.
It is amazing how quickly they
slow down. They can’t see, they realize
that they are going too fast for conditions.
The beauty of that is now, I can drive more relaxed, as long as I see
their tail lights I know where the road is and what is coming up. If there are deer or other animals getting
ready to cross we hope we will better see them.
The tension is nowhere near as great when someone else is ‘breaking
trail’ for us.
Not much different in our
spiritual life. We are going along when
suddenly we hit a hard spot in our life.
We can’t see anything; we inch along not really knowing what is ahead.
We become anxious because it is a
dangerous place to be in – we can’t see the enemy, we can’t see anything, we are
literally blind. We are tense and in a
great deal of stress, if we are not careful we can find our health
deteriorating.
The difference between this
foggy highway we occasionally encounter and our spiritual life is, in our
spiritual life we can ask Him to go before us.
His light is the one we are following.
HE knows where we are and where we are going, we just have to have faith
in Him.
It doesn’t mean that He will do
things exactly as we want. We want to be
out of the fog, it may benefit His plans for us to remain in the fog. We want a clear direction, He may want to
force us to take our minds off the direction and just let Him be our guide.
There was a book written by a WW
II fighter ace, Col. Robert L. Scott entitled “God is my co-pilot.” I haven’t read it, but I understand it
credits God with protecting him as he flew in the war. It sounds good, it gives credit to God right
in the title – but a friend put it in a little different perspective (I am not
downplaying Scott’s testimony, it is important) he told me, if God is your
Co-pilot in life, He is in the wrong seat.
We have to learn to trust God;
no matter what we are facing we can be assured that God is going to use it, one
way or another, to bring others to Him.
We just need to follow Him and let Him take the pilot’s seat.
Later, Art :-)
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