Stories and other stuff

"[During this course] and during your life you will have times when you want to respond based on your own experiences or your own wisdom.  Such an approach will get you in trouble."  Henry Blackaby Experiencing God I've been thinking about how I got where I am today and this quote from today's lesson in the Experiencing God workbook started out with these words which summed it up nicely. The way forward in my life is not a big picture view.  I thought I had that last week, but it wasn't God leading.  There was a lot going on but mostly is was an attempt to deceive.  Truth tells me that the evil one can disguise himself as an angel of light.  Truth also tells me that the sheep know the Shepherd's voice and this sheep wants to make sure I'm hearing right.  Or seeing right.  So I can follow right. I should have known something was up when I quit singing.  Often times there's a song in my heart because God gives joy.  Even in circu...

As I stood in the checkout line this morning, I noticed two things:  one was a very attractive woman in front of me.  The other one was a very distraught woman employee of the store I was shopping at.  One of them caught more of my attention than the other. As I stood there, I didn't watch the woman unload her cart (but boy the God of all Creation made that one pretty!).  My attention was toward the woman working at the store.  I saw her put her hands to her head and bend down while she faced the shelf she was working on.  She had one of those little computer gadgets she was pretending to look at.  If she wasn't crying, she was close.  At one point, I saw her take her left hand and swat at something on the shelf out of utter frustration. There are times when I think it appropriate to approach a stranger and ask if there's something you can do and this, I think would have been one of those times.  Here's why I didn't... I'm a guy. Had ...

I don't write much these days, I know.  Wednesday, I was moved to write something .  I re-read it.  My English professor would be appalled.  There have to be better words to start sentences with than but and , ummmm, and. I was tired but I had such a great day Wednesday.  I was just happy that I was on the right path and it's tough to write well on little sleep and no coffee, so I'd like to try it again to try and make sense of what I was trying to say. I heard a couple of radio programs on Wednesday that shed a lot of light into my circumstances right now.  Yes they involve someone.  No it's not anybody I've ever been married to.  It's also not anybody that God ever said "NO!" to.  I let her get away once.  That was a bad idea because God brought her into my life.  She was supposed to stay there but people make mistakes.  Sometimes, though, we get a second chance.  That's what I was eluding to when I wrote the blog. ...

First off, like much of my life, it didn't have to be this way.  I MADE it this way, but God sometimes has plans that we can derail, but not totally destroy.  I have to have faith that it's the former for me and not the latter.  From everything that's happened and Oh, the cool stories I can tell about a merciful God that is helping me (but won't right now!). Sometimes all you have left in life is a prayer.  And mine today was answered in steps.  One of those steps is gonna involve some waiting. On the way home from my morning meeting, (get to part of that in a second...) I listened to a program about believers and how we come under attack from the Evil One.  It does happen.  Satan is a powerful enemy, but Christians have tools to defeat him.  Mostly mine are trying to make sense of stuff that's happening around me.  The worst thing I have is doubt that this thing will come to pass and sometimes I have to stop and pray about the next step....

Life sometimes doesn't make sense.  OK, frequently mine doesn't, but I operate with one truth in mind.... nothing comes my way without God's foreknowledge.  It's either from, or allowed by, God Himself because He's in control.  Letting go was hard, but as weird as my life is, and as bad as some things hurt (physically and emotionally), there's no way I want to go back to what it was before. Here are some stories about how God works in my life. I was asked to help with a Bible study class on Wednesdays for a group of men.  I'm so blessed to be able to do that.  Anyway, I put together the lesson for this week based upon an idea from one of the group about how simple the concept of Salvation is.  I had an idea where I'd head with that topic and then I opened the mail on Monday.  In it was a newsletter from BBN Radio and the lead article talked about Salvation being simple.  I actually used one of the Scripture verses quoted in the article for my ...