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I am beginning to recognize that those stories from the bible we grew up hearing truly are very relevant in my life today! Yeah, call me thick headed but I am watching the bible unfold in my life every day! It has only taken sixty-some years for me to recognize it. Allow me to elaborate on the most recent event.
Many of you know we do a great deal of traveling. As many miles as we put on our car, it is inevitable that we encounter difficulties. But none of us ever
expect those difficulties, they always seem to blindside us. So let me remind you this happened with Jesus and his disciples while they were on the boat crossing the Sea of Galilee. The storms raged, the disciples feared for their lives and Jesus was sleeping through it all. Eventually, someone decided to wake Jesus up and inform him that they were all about to perish and that it was way past time for him to take part in the freaking out process. We’ll pause there for a moment.
This past week, Phyllis and I spent time in the mountains of Tennesee spending time with some friends and opening ourselves to what God might have for us moving forward. We were all leaving one location and moving to another about 30 minutes away, Phyllis and I in one vehicle and they in another. The skies were starting to get dark and it was apparent we needed to be on our way. As we drove, I asked God to go before us and protect us. About 20 minutes into our drive the bottom fell out and we found ourselves in the middle of a gulley washer! We watched as sizable tree limbs broke and began to fall, but there was no place for us to take cover and I felt the urge to just keep driving. I did my best to keep my eyes open for the possibility of a tornado while I was driving but saw nothing. As the storm began to let up, we turned a corner and found the road was completely blocked by a fallen tree. Thank you, God, that the storm had let up so we saw it in time. We turned around and backtracked and I noticed, about a half mile back, a farmhouse with three trees in the front yard that had been snapped and blown over. Each was fairly young and about eight to ten inches in diameter. My thoughts were, “Wow! The wind was stronger than I thought!" By this time, the storm had completely passed and we stopped our friends before they came to the tree and informed them we needed to find another route. We then spent the next two and a half hours looking for that other route. Everywhere we turned a tree had fallen and blocked the route. We must have tried 10 different backroads before we found a way through.
As I sit here several days later, I realize several things with spiritual implications. First, while I felt God urging us to leave, I did not pray with my wife so that she also heard God’s voice in our departure. While driving, I was at peace with the entire thing. I had heard God’s voice to go, but my poor wife was pulling her hair out. I had not given her the chance to hear God’s voice as well. I am sorry honey, please forgive me. The second thing I recognize is that in the middle of it all, with tree limbs falling and the wind (or tornado) blowing strong enough to bring dozens of trees down, not once did I feel the effects of the wind on the car. I mean it was like we were in a bubble and the wind just wasn’t hitting us. I was able to be at peace while everything else was falling apart. That is how powerful hearing God’s voice can be. Christ was able to sleep through the storm because he had heard God’s voice earlier telling him to go. It gave him the power to speak peace to the world around him! The number one lesson I have learned from all this, listen for God’s voice and carry it with you as you enter the storm! Oh, and last I heard, they were still trying to determine if it was strong winds or a tornado that took all those trees down.
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