September Surprises

For 51 weeks a year we teach verse by verse through the Bible at Parkland Chapel-New Testament on Sunday mornings and Old Testament on Sunday evenings. But this Sunday morning, September 9, we are going to have Ministry Through Mystery visiting our fellowship. Dennis and Sandee Zech are a husband and wife team who travel throughout the country using illusion to share the gospel and expose the way the enemy deceives us. There will be a BBQ directly following the service, and if the weather permits, we have a spot mowed and marked for a waffle ball game in the back field. Sunday evening we will be watching the documentary “Mountain of Fire”?. This film traces the journey of two Los Angeles based men who studied the account of the Exodus and then flew to the Middle East, where they tracked the ancient Israelites journey step for step. Popcorn will be crunched and soda gulped as we watch this riveting footage that powerfully illustrates the accuracy and authority of God’s word.

The book of James, chapter four and verses thirteen through fifteen, cautions us about making plans without consulting the Lord.
Come now, you who say, “Tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there, buy and sell, and make profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.”
Seeking the Lord’s will in our daily endeavors, whether large or small, is imperative for peace and contentment in life, for a few reasons.
First, God’s will is always best for my life, so I do well if I seek to know it and do it. Therein lays my most productive path. Often the Lord gives direct leading in areas of our life.
Second, if I am truly open to His will, then I will be more flexible and sensitive to the leading of His Spirit in the areas where I have no direct leading.
Third, if I know I have sought His will, even the daily duties, then I am not overwhelmed by the unforeseen dilemmas that inevitably rear their ugly little heads, because I know that He has allowed them.

Let me illustrate from my own experience this week…
As I mentioned above, we have special services this weekend. I have no doubt that I have sought God’s will on these. Whether many or few attend, whether it rains or shines, whether Sunday is a “success” or not, I am confidently resting in Him for the means as well as the end result.
For me personally, the special services mean that I will not be teaching this weekend. While it is the greatest thrill in the world to present the word of God to an eager group every week, I was highly anticipating a week where I could spend an excess amount of time with the Lord reading and praying. I had several books on the life of Elijah lined up to pour over this week. I never really sought God’s will on this. It’s a no-brainer. God loved Elijah. He is the greatest of Old Testament prophets. If the Lord allowed chapters of 1 Kings to focus on His work through this man then surely He wants me to glean lessons from Elijah’s life this week.

Last Sunday evening I came home from a full day of services and, before digging into my first book “Elijah, A Man of Like Nature”, I thought I would check my email. I pushed the power button. The computer made a grinding sound, wheezed and coughed, and then gave me a blue screen that said my hive file had been corrupted. Now I don’t know what a hive file is but I know what the definition for corrupted is, and I know I don’t want that word linked to my computer in any fashion. I prayed fervently for the salvation of my laptop.

I didn’t get my will on this one. My computer had crashed. Thus, before my week began it was, in my mind, already over. And so, all week I have been mired in the technical trenches trying to recover documents and reload essential software. Honestly, it was one of the most frustrating weeks in recent memory, and the whole reason (besides the fact that I am nearly computer illiterate) was that I had made up my mind that I was going to do a certain thing in a certain time frame, and, when that did not transpire, I became foul instead of flexible.

Thinking of my main man Elijah, he courageously confronted and defeated the 450 prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel by seeking the Lord’s will only to immediately run for his life based upon the threats of one woman. Her death threat just wasn’t in his plans. (Having mentioned that excerpt from Elijah’s story, I guess I exposed the fact that I had the opportunity to read a quite a bit this week in spite of everything, just not as much as I had hoped.)

The real shame of it all is, when we get fixated on a detail, major or minor, it robs us of the ability to see and enjoy all that the Lord is doing outside of that circumstance. He is still working His will whether we seek it, accept it and enjoy it or not (Jn. 5:17).

Outside my little computer crisis, there was much the Lord was doing to be blessed by. Our guys Bible study on Wednesday nights continues to amaze me. As the men are learning to truly exegete the scriptures the observations, correlations, interpretations and applications are phenomenal. Yesterday, I set up the sanctuary with thirty two new chairs, bringing our total number of chairs to 100. For me, was a time of deep reflection and thankfulness to God. It was just a little over two years ago that I was in our unfinished basement arranging the first fifteen chairs we had ever purchased in preparation for our first Bible study. How great is our God! As I am typing this, my seventh month old son, Nathaniel, just pulled himself up from a sitting position to a standing position. He promptly fell back and hit his head, which led to mini-meltdown. But how cool is that.

It all brings to my mind my life one of my favorite verses, from Proverbs 16:9Proverbs 16:9
English: World English Bible - WEB
9 A man’s heart plans his course, But Yahweh directs his steps.

, a man’s heart plans his ways, but the Lord directs his steps. It’s a lesson I keep on learning-learning to seek Him in the daily and learning to be blessed in the daily as well. May you be blessed as you seek His will and learn to follow flexibly day by day.

God bless,
Mike