A little self assurance

It is 8:30 AM on Thursday, July 2, 2009. I'm sitting on the couch sipping coffee from my "Don't Mess With Texas" coffee cup. I should be studying. I was up late last night working on some website stuff and listening to some online sermons. Despite being up so late, I woke up early this morning with lots of stuff on my mind and I figured I'd share.

I had the opportunity to preach last night in our Wednesday evening service. Our pastor's son had a medical procedure at Vanderbilt on Tuesday and he had a lot going on so I was happy to fill in for him. I was also happy that God gave me a more upbeat message to preach. It seems like for the past several months all He has been giving me are gloom and doom sermons. It was a refreshing change for me to not feel like I was beating everybody up with the Word. I brought a message about Gideon. It was more like a Sunday school lesson than a sermon I suppose. You can give it a listen if you'd like:

Also, yesterday morning, since I am on vacation this week, my family and I went driving around. I had found a church for sale on the Internet a few days ago and we decided to drive out to Lenoir City to look at it. We pulled up the church driveway and it was exactly as I had pictured it. It just looked like the perfect little church sitting in a beautiful spot up on a hill. Just a small white country church with a tall steeple. It was pretty old and had several things that needed to be repaired. The gutters were clogged and were hanging down in a few places. Weeds had taken over what once used to be flower beds. My heart ached for this church. I couldn't help but wonder why its members had abandoned it. I'm sure at one time there were some happy people attending there that was proud of their little church. I could just imagine in my mind, young children playing outside on a Homecoming Sunday morning, chasing each other through the large churchyard. I could almost hear their laughter. I walked over to the large bell and pulled on the ropes to ring it. It rang out loud, echoing across the valley. I could imagine families in the neighborhood hearing the church bell ring, knowing it was nearly time for services to start. I wanted so badly to clean out the weeds, paint the outside, straighten the handrails and make it look vibrant again. I had my camera with me so I took several pictures of it, which some are attached to this post.

On the drive back home, my kids asked several questions. "Why did we go see that church?" "Are we going to buy that church?" "Why is that church for sale?" I didn't have many answers for them. My oldest daughter became really upset thinking that we were just going to buy the church and move to Lenoir City. I assured her that we would not do anything unless it was God's will. I've learned one thing for sure in my 42-years; don't do ANYTHING unless you know for sure it is God's will. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've got something on my mind and set about making it happen all on my own strength. Nearly every time I've done that, I've failed. It's not until I've beat my head against the wall that I start listening to that still small voice and hand it over to Him. Just like in my sermon last night, if Gideon had of done things his way, he would have went to battle with the 32,000 men instead of the 300 that God wanted. I believe in my heart of hearts if Gideon had proceeded on his own, he would have sent 32,000 men to be slaughtered by the Midianites. But, because he did things God's way, the children of Israel won the battle, even against great odds.

Well, those are my thoughts this morning. I'm really not sure what my point is in all of this. I guess I just needed to assure myself that I need to wait on God for what He wants in my life and you just happened to stumble across this post and was forced to listen.