safely

October 29, 2018

“Our Father Is In Charge – Enjoy the Trip”

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7 For the Lord your God has blessed you in everything you have done. He has watched your every step through this great wilderness. During these forty years, the Lord your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing.”’ — Deuteronomy 2:7 NLT

If you have ever taken a road trip with your kids then you have heard the question, “when will we get there?” or “how much longer?”.  One Mother’s answer was “Your Father is in charge, he will take care of us and we will arrive safely.  We can just enjoy the trip.”  That is a lesson that the Israelis never seemed to learn.  Their stubbornness and refusal to learn it changed a trip that should have taken only eleven days into an adventure that lasted over forty years.  Because of their attitude, we read in Hebrews, that the original generation of Israelis never entered the rest that God had prepared for them.  Instead of enjoying the trip, the Israelis continually moaned, groaned and whined.  How many days have we wasted whining when we could have just relaxed and enjoyed the trip?  How many more days will we waste moaning and groaning because, like the Israelis, we don’t trust our Father to provide for us and bring us safely home?  Moses told the children of Israel “during these forty years, the Lord your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing.”  They wanted a lot of things they didn’t have, but they had everything they needed to make the journey.  The Lord our God is still with us and we lack nothing that we need.  If we could ever learn to rest and enjoy the trip, it would not matter when we got there because each day would be a new experience enjoying the presence of the Lord.  Remember that God is our provider and our shield, rest in His presence and repeat as often as necessary.

 
6 So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. 7 So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. — Hebrews 4:6, 7a NLT
“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous
Post 10-29-2018
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January 17, 2016

Living Our Lives “By the Seat of Our Pants”?

even-smaller-bug-light124 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. — Matthew 7:24, 25 NIV

In the early days of aviation, long before the technology that produced GPS and other navigational aids, pilots would fly using only visual references. Using nothing but their sense of direction, the location of the sun and familiar landmarks, they were able to go from point to point.  They would often pick out a road and follow along that route.  Pilots kept the aircraft upright, straight and level by watching the horizon and the pressure they would feel on their posterior to determine if they were ascending or descending.  This type of flying became known as “flying by the seat of your pants”.   Because the pilot used only his physical senses, he would, at times, become slightly disoriented.  Needless to say, this type of flying often ended up with the pilot flying or following a path that was not always a straight line.  If the pilot became too disoriented and confused, the result was a crash often ending in the pilot’s death.  The pilots could only fly in clear skies so that all the physical landmarks would be visible to the human eye.  At that time, it was impossible to fly above a cloud layer or through storms. Avaitors had to wait until techonology was developed to help them navigate and maintain orientation to fly above the clouds and through the stormy weather.
How many of us live our lives “by the seat of our pants” depending only on our feelings and the things that we can see to guide us?  Like the old pilots, we may do all right as long as there is clear weather, no storms, no clear air turbulence and no major wind shifts to blow us off  course.  But what happens when the storms of life come? What happens when our feelings lead us off course? We have Someone that we can trust to carry us safely through the storm.  When our sense of purpose fails us, we have One who will keep us on course and fly us straight to safety.  But, God is not satisfied with being our navigator or our copilot, He wants to be our Pilot and He does not need a navigator.  He doesn’t want to be our Pilot just in the storms, He wants to be our Pilot in the clear skies as well.  With God, the plan is always “all in” or it won’t work.  Build on the Solid Rock and trust Him with every part of your life.
Post 01-17-2016