THE WAYS OF THE LORD

February 19 2008

Do you feel the presence of the Lord? I feel like something is inside of me greater than I can imagine, something that is drawing me closer to the Lord. The presence is so powerful. I can’t express the desire. I can feel the Spirit of the Lord inside of me. It’s like it is going to explode or it is coming out. I know I was created for a time as this. Everything has come to this point. Now we are waiting on the Lord to move. It is almost like a chess match. God can’t do anything until we hear Him from heaven and we move in response to His direction; then he steps in and brings His promises to pass. There are so many who are waiting on the Lord to move first and He is waiting on them to step out into the things of the Lord.

It's funny. I would not consider myself a studious person. In the past six months I have been through two courses for licensing in North Carolina. One was for life and health. I really didn’t want to sell life and health insurance but I felt I should go through and get my license. I did that one and then the Lord prompted me to go into real estate school. So off to real estate school I went. It was a 75 hour course. I took my final exam test six days ago and just received my certificate of completion. I wasn’t sure if I passed. Sometimes you have to step out to find the place the Lord has for you. Now I still have to take the state exam once I file the appropriate papers with the North Carolina Real Estate Commission. No matter what it looks like the Lord always has a way out no matter how bad it is nothing is imposable for the Lord. I have truly submitted all my ways to the Lord. I will proceed on this path until the Lord directs me on another path. If we submit all our way to the Lord, He will lead us down the right path but we need to position ourself before Him every day and let Him lead us; not our own desires, wills, emotions and understandings. Only then will we truly be led of the Spirit of the Lord. I truly believe He enjoys being our guide in life but we need to heed the words and direction of the Lord. When we step out in our own understanding, we will fall and there will be disappointments along the way. There will be disappointments with the Lord because His ways are not our way and His desires are not our desires. Sometimes we will have our own expectations and they will not line up with the Lord's and other times He will blow our own expectations out of the water. So goes the roller coaster ride of our lives. We need to learn to trust Him and Him alone and be content with what He is doing and trust Him in His ways. Sometimes we don’t know what He has before us. We are blind.

I remember when we first went on an aircraft carrier, we had to blind fold each other and try to walk through the passageways so we could get around in case of an emergency. We would lead each other around and you had to trust your partner or you could fall down a couple flight of stairs. You had to put your life in someone elses hands. Walking with the Lord is the same thing. Most of the time, we can’t see the future or what is going to happen down the road but He knows. I had a friend, who had a second business and was suppose to go pick up his supplies on Thursday, but there was a meeting where we worked together and he ended up being in that meeting all day. A day or so later, he came to me and said I wouldn’t believe him. He told me if he had gone to pick up his supplies he would have been shot. Some guy had gone into the warehouse at the time he would have been there and shot everyone there. My friend is a pastor. I said wouldn’t it be great if we would be so tuned into God that when He told us not to go somewhere we would listen so He wouldn’t have to put obstacles in our way. Sometime we are so caught up with doing things and keeping our agendas that it might in the long run cost us our lives. Can you obey the Lord at all costs no matter what might be said about you? Can you put up with people making fun of you and insulting you? I keep hearing the words of the Lord: Who are you to say you will go here and there today and tomorrow; you do not know the will of the Lord. But we should say if the Lord wills us we will go here and there.

Let me tell you, we will go through things while learning the ways of the Lord, learning how to listen and hear the Lord. He speaks through everything. We just have to tune our spiritual ears to hear Him. He is always is always speaking. We need to slow down so we can hear.

Creation hears and responds to the word of the Lord. Everything was created for a purpose: to glorify the one and only God, the creator of the universe. Did you know that if there is no wind trees will not grow. The wind helps make them strong and sturdy. As the wind blows it makes them grow straight up. They tried to grow trees in a no wind environment and the trees didn’t grow. Isn't that something? How about the tsunami? When the wave was coming in, the animals were heading to high ground but the people were so caught up in what they were doing that they didn’t read the signs of nature. Sometimes when you get that feeling that something is not right you need to take a step back and make sure what is going on -- it could be a life saving event. You hear testimony after testimony about people saying, "I don’t know why but I just didn’t want to go to work," or "I didn’t want to go and there," and then something catastrophic happened and that is the only reason why they are alive. Each and every one of us has instinctive feelings we need to listen to sometimes.

Another bad trait we have is we are creatures of habit. I don’t know too many people who like to have their world turned upside down. I like it every once in a while. Change keeps you on your toes. I think it makes life fun. I really don’t like the same old, same old. Now I like a little bit of routine but not a lot of routine. I like spontaneous. I expect the Lord is getting ready to shake things up. We get too complacent in our lives and we quit looking to the Lord for direction and help and He enjoys helping and providing for His children. So are you going to be one who sees the signs of the times or are you going to be the one who will be caught by surprise when the plow comes?