Signs

"What do you need, a big neon sign above your head saying, 'this is a sign from God'?"
"Well, no I guess, not..."

Personally, I'm still looking for the 'big neon sign'.

1Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. 12) For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.

Abraham was a nomad, wandering from Ur of the Chaldees, to wheresoever Jehovah would lead him.

"The story of Jesus is here in the Bible," I'm teaching my little people Sunday morning. "Grandma reads the stories, then I tell them to you here in class. The story of Abraham, and Adam and Eve, they're here in the Bible--" I hold up the little Bible we have been singing about. All of the lessons I tell you come from the Bible." I'm hoping to impress on their young minds where our lessons come from, since I 'tell them the Bible stories' not read them from any book.

"Why did you put all those stories in the Bible, Grandma?"
--Out of the mouth of babes, I think to myself with an inward laugh. "Oh, honey, God put those stories in the Bible, not Grandma. Those stories tell us that if we want to be happy we must obey God..."

That, you see, is the proverbial 'rub'. To be happy we must obey God. How do you know what God wants you to do? Of course we have the 'plan of salvation', but leading an honest Christian life here on earth honors God, and there are many honest Christian lives. The car sales man, the banker, the day laborer, the gas station attendant, and many other vocations can be done in such a way as to glorify God. How to know which one YOU are to do? Which door has God opened for you.
Revelation 3:8 I know thy works (behold, I have set before thee a door opened, which none can shut), that thou hast a little power, and didst keep my word, and didst not deny my name.

When God opens a door...go through it.

"To train a horse, you make it harder for them to do what you don't want them to do, than it is to do what you want them to do," our friend advises as we are beginning to work with our Morgan horse.

"One of Satan's effective strategies is to choke spiritual interests through the cares of this life," the 9th grade English book admonishes.

When our path gets rough, is it God trying to influence us to do something different, or just Satan's way of discouraging us? We must judge-- and judge correctly.

"As I get older, my arm isn't long enough," the fellow is holding out a card trying to read it with glasses that aren't quite the right prescription any longer.
We laugh, because most of us know exactly what he means. To see something correctly, we have to be the right distance to it.

Do you want to be closer to God? What will help you be closer? Do we lack wisdom to know what to do? James 1:5 "But if any of you lacketh wisdom, let him ask of God" Do we lack faith? Mark 9:24 "Straightway the father of the child cried out, and said, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." Do we lack courage? Hebrews 13:5 "... for himself hath said, I will in no wise fail thee, neither will I in any wise forsake thee. &6) So that with good courage we say, The Lord is my helper; I will not fear: ...?"

Usually what happens is that we get caught up doing the routine things, and one day we look around and wonder, 'Hey, how did I get here... and further more... how do I get out?' Or we realize that some how what we started out to do...it got lost in the shuffle, and again, 'how do we get out?'

1John 5:14 And this is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us:

Psalms 37:5&6 Commit thy way unto Jehovah; Trust also in him, and he will bring it to pass. 6) And he will make thy righteousness to go forth as the light, And thy justice as the noon-day.

Psalms 73:28 But it is good for me to draw near unto God: I have made the Lord Jehovah my refuge, That I may tell of all thy works.

Psalms 46:10&11 Be still, and know that I am God:
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.
11) Jehovah of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah