I don’t know about you, but these were words I heard a lot when I was growing up. Seems like whenever my parents wanted to deny me something I wanted to do or have and they didn’t want to explain themselves to me this was the standard answer I got.

Over the past 4-5 months I have not posted anything here at the Blog as I have been struggling with an issue in my life. The company I work for has been slowing down for a while now due to the economy. It was looking rather bleak for quite a few months last year and we didn’t always get to work a full week. I had been praying every morning before work that God would send some work into our shop so that none of our friends and co-workers would lose their jobs. In fact I have since found out that we were down to less than a week before there was going to be a layoff. Then the corporate powers to be decided to send additional work, work that we do not normally do but that would help out the rest of the company as a whole, into our facility. My prayers had been answered. But along with this work would require half a dozen of us to work a split shift on 3 machines. Three guys would work from 5 AM to 1 PM and three of us would work 1PM till 9 PM. Well, I was on the 1-9 shift and have been since last September.

Needless to say this is not what I wanted. I had to give up anything that I used to do of an evening. I had to go back to working a night shift after 22 years of working at this company. I have struggled with this for months. I hate the idea that I asked God to answer my prayers and then I complained about it. I understood full well that I not only had a job but a good job in an economy that right now a lot of people don’t have and would die to work the hours I was working. I knew I was on this shift for a reason. I would pray to the Lord and ask for forgiveness and strength. It would work for a few days and I would slip back into the slimy pit of complaining and self-pity. I wanted an answer to why I had to do this and all I got was “because I said so.”

Then slowly over the weeks I began to notice some things. I had more time in the early morning hours to spend quietly with God in study and prayer instead of doing it hastily and then rushing off to work. But more importantly it gave me more time to develop a real relationship with my wife. Most of the things I had to give up in the evenings had to do with me. In other words, things that I wanted to do while my wife sat here at the house by herself. When I did get home I was tired and it wasn’t long before I went to bed. I now had mornings off and it allowed me more time to spend with my wonderful wife. More time for us to do things together and time to get closer as husband and wife, the way God meant us to be. That may sound strange to some people because we have been married for almost 40 years, but due to my own selfish self-centeredness this has always been a very weak area of my life.

In time the last couple months and with much prayer, God has told me what he was doing. He answered my prayer and sent work into our shop. He has shown me that by not only answering my prayers He was going to do a work in me. He was going to bring me closer to Him and to my wife. He was going to begin shaping me into the husband and companion that my wife has always wanted, needed and deserved.

I have tried for years off and on to be a better husband and partner to my wife and it usually didn’t work out. I am closer now to my wife than I have ever been in over 40 years of our relationship together. God did a work in me that I could not do myself. I still have a long way to go but I know it’s alright now because I have heard the voice behind me, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Looking back now I realize that when my parents told me “because I said so” that they usually had a reason for it. They knew I wasn’t ready for the real answer at the time or wouldn’t like it, but it was generally for my own good and well-being. I know now that God is the same way in all our lives too. He heads us down paths sometimes that we not only don’t understand but don’t like. But if we just put total faith and trust in Him, eventually we will look back and understand that it was for our benefit and good.

There is not much complaining now. I know that I am on this shift for a reason and God wants me here. When He is ready for me to move on I will follow. After all, He works everything together for good to those who love Him, and how we do love Him!

That is the title of a song by Mercy Me and it is one of my favorites by that group. The song speaks to the fact that sometimes the last thing we need is to be the one talking to God, but to be quiet and hear what He has to say.

A few weeks before I left for Juarez, Mexico, Psalm 139:7-10 was a part of my scripture reading for that day.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast. (NIV)

I was very taken by this scripture and in ways I could not believe. I committed it to memory almost instantly. I usually have to write these things down and work on memorizing the things I want to remember. Not this. Almost from the moment I read it the scripture became a part of me. Over the next few weeks it started showing up everywhere. It appeared in more than one devotional that I subscribe to. It showed up in articles I was reading on the internet and in sermons at church. Everywhere I turned it seemed to show up. The morning we left for Mexico and we all gathered for our group prayer, that Psalm was what I prayed to our group. Our group leader who put together each evening’s devotionals told me that our devotional that he had put together a few weeks earlier for that evening was Psalm 139:7-10.

Leading up to that time as I prayed and listened quietly to the Lord, it became evident that this was His unmistakable voice speaking to me. He was telling me that no matter where I went and no matter how far I traveled, He would be with me. Juarez is in the news a lot because of the violence down there and a lot of people questioned our traveling there. God never told me once that I would be safe and that no harm would come to me, but He made it clear that no matter what happened, He would be with me. That gave me an incredible confidence and internal peace that not only helped me then, but is still with me to this day.

While I originally viewed that Psalm as locational, as in the fact that I was traveling to different parts of the country and world, in recent weeks I have come to see that it speaks of where you are at spiritually and emotionally also. You see, it is easy to find His presence when you are on a spiritual high, when you have been to the mountain top, so to speak. But when you are down, when you think no one cares about you, or you are feeling like you just don’t care anymore, He is still there. His right hand is still holding you fast. You can’t flee from Him no matter how down you are. You may not think He is there, but He is. Sometimes all it takes is just to be quiet and listen for His voice. Take some time each day and quietly listen, you may be surprised by what you hear.

All that I need is to be with You
And in the quiet hear Your voice
~ Bart Millard

I have not had a deck on the back of our house for quite a few years. We demolished the old one because it was falling apart and just have not got around to putting another one up. This was the year we were going to finally put up a new one. I was going to have one professionally built but that all changed after my mission trip to Juarez.

The original plan was to pay to have someone build a deck on the back of the house. I have seen the work done around town by some of the companies that do that and they look perfect and are done fairly quickly. But spending a week in Juarez building a house for a family in need taught me something about working together and fellowshipping with other adults and youth. The week was not finished before I had decided I wanted to build that deck with my son and my grandsons. It would be a time we could spend together building not just a deck but building the relationships and forging a bond with them just as I did with those in Mexico.

One of the things I brought back with me from Juarez was several hands full of nails. We had to pick up the job site at the end of each day and we always had a lot of bent nails that we had pulled out of lumber when we couldn’t get them nailed in properly. I asked Janette, our team guide what we should do with them and she said “why don’t you keep them as souvenirs.” Tom, our church group leader and I decided that would be a great idea and we have both kept some of them as a reminder to us that not everything has to be perfect all the time. I have one of these sitting on my book case as a reminder of that. I also had quite a few more nails that were good that I found in the bottom of the job box when I cleaned it out. I didn’t know what I would ever do with them so I put them on a shelf in the garage.

This past Saturday my son, grandson and I started the work on our deck. Now I don’t know much about wood, so just like in Mexico, I followed instructions. We dug the holes, sawed the posts and were going to set them in with concrete. My son wanted to know if I had some nails we could nail into the bottom sides of the support posts so that the concrete could set up around it and make the posts more solid. Kind of like a mini-rebar. I knew right then what I was going to use. Each of those 9 posts we set have 8 nails driven into them, all brought back from Mexico. Once the concrete set up, it would give us a rock solid foundation to build upon.

It is always best to have a good foundation in anything you do, not just building a deck, but in your daily life as well and the best foundation we can build upon is the rock of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said “I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.” Luke 6:47-48 NIV

If you still haven’t found Him, I urge you to seek Him out and accept Him as your Savior. You can’t go wrong when you start your life again at any age built on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ. Yes, there will be storms that come along, some of them severe, but you will weather them with His foundation.

Oh, and incidentally, I purposely put a couple of the bent nails in the support posts. They are a reminder that just as the mission to Juarez wasn’t really about building a house; this isn’t about building a perfect deck. It is about building something much more important and I look forward to each coming weekend.

I remember years ago when I was in high school it seemed like it would never get over. I couldn’t wait to get out of school, out of the house and be on my own. Time just seemed to stand still or at best dragged by at a snail’s pace. Well, high school finally got over and then time seemed to fly by. Suddenly I am looking down the barrel at 60 years old. I generally don’t think about those years going by so fast or how old I am getting but the other day a lot of that came rushing back to me.

My oldest grandchild graduated from the 8th grade last week. Before the ceremony was over I walked to the back of the gymnasium and stood with my camera waiting to get pictures as the kids walked down the floor. Suddenly a flood of years gone by came rushing back to me. I recalled sitting in that old run down hospital in Dodge City in 1976 and seeing my daughter born. Then flashing forward to that same daughter lying in a hospital bed in Salina after giving birth to my granddaughter, holding her in her arms and saying “look Dad isn’t she beautiful.” It was at that moment that I realized she had grown up and wasn’t my “little girl” anymore. But I had a new little girl in my life in my granddaughter. Now suddenly that same little girl is growing up and moving on to high school.

At that moment all the years gone by seemed to weigh heavily on me and I recalled the words of James. “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). As I continue to age, this truth becomes more and more real. Our time is short!

Like me in my younger days, you may think that time is dragging by at a snail’s pace and that you have all the time in the world to make that decision for Christ. But the things of this world are temporary and passing away. If you are searching for something that is not temporary then I urge you to seek Him and follow where He leads. Draw close to Jesus’ presence and let Him show you the things that are eternal.

A son takes his inheritance and leaves his home and loving father only to discover that his idea of freedom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Watch this retelling of the parable of the Prodigal Son.

I read from a daily devotional each day and this past Tuesday’s devotional was actually a prayer. It was a wonderful prayer that needs no explanation. Since today is the National Day of Prayer, I thought I would post it up.

“Lord, Your Word says that You are ‘the only wise God’ and I am desperately in need of You at this time. I’m in a situation human wisdom can’t explain and human ability can’t fix. There’s only one way out, that’s through You! Send the spirit of wisdom and show me which way to go. Send the spirit of revelation to help me understand what I can’t figure out, for nobody but You can get me through this. Help me to faithfully obey all You show me to do, and to remember that sometimes the wisdom of this world is foolishness to You. Help me to know the difference between human advice and godly advice, and to choose Your way. I submit this situation to You and commit myself to following You, knowing You’ve promised to direct my steps. Help me to walk this road with confidence in You; with the courage that comes from knowing I am Yours. Help me to cling to my convictions, yet still love those who misunderstand me. Keep me far from anger and close to Your heart. And though it’s an uphill climb, take my hand, light my way and help me to walk on, for in the end I know that all things will work together for my good and Your glory.

In Christ’s name, Amen.’

Note: This prayer was taken from “The Word for You Today” devotional distributed by Great Plains Christian Radio, Inc. No author was listed.

Each day of our mission trip to Juarez, once the days’ work was done, there was always what I called quiet time before I went to bed. It may have been just lying in my sleeping bag or sitting on the rooftop of the church in Juarez, or gazing at the lights overlooking the city of El Paso but it was a time I could spend alone with my thoughts and happenings of the day.

On the last night before we headed back to Kansas I was sitting in one of the pews at Park Hills Christian Church in El Paso. I had chosen to sleep in one of the padded pews that evening and I was kicked back looking at the white cross on the opposite wall. Now the sanctuary at Park Hills is in a circular amphitheater setting. Each night they would dim the lights down to almost that of a single candle. People could see if they got up in the middle of the night yet it would not bother anyone trying to sleep. As I sat there looking at that white cross and reflecting on the week’s events in Juarez they began to turn the lights down for the evening. As they did so, that cross on the opposite wall actually got brighter and I could see it better. Now there was no back lighting on the cross and it was not “glow in the dark” or had any other lighting on it. It was simply amazing that as it got darker, I could see it better.

Suddenly all I could think of was John 1:5 “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” I walked in that darkness most of my life and I could never understand the light that was being shined on me. For quite a while after my salvation I tried to figure out why I couldn’t understand it for so long. 1 Corinthians 2:14 says “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

I walked in darkness all those years and every time someone tried to show or explain the things of God to me, I just laughed them off as foolishness. I could not see that light nor understand it until I had accepted Christ and the Holy Spirit in my life. If you are in the dark and want to see the light of that cross become brighter then I urge you to seek him out and accept him into your heart and you will never be in that darkness again.

John 8:12
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

While on our mission trip to Juarez I saw the work of God both spiritually and physically. This story is of the physical.

Friday morning March the 25th we had our bus loaded and left El Paso and headed to Dalhart, Texas. From the moment we left the bus felt different. There was a vibration that we didn’t have on the trip down. I tried driving in different lanes because sometimes one lane of the highway will ride smoother than the other but that didn’t help. Tom and Jim suggested that it might be because we were a lot lighter than before and that sounded like a good reason. The vibration seemed worse at 50-55 mph and was not as bad at 65, so we just figured it was time to get some tires balanced when we got back. We stopped at a souvenir shop in Tularosa, New Mexico, while there we checked all the tires and as far as we could see, nothing seemed out of the ordinary, although we all agreed that the bus could use new tires. Somewhere in the mountains past Carrizozo, New Mexico we heard a thump and rattling on the right side of the bus. We pulled over and found we had thrown the tread off the inside dual on the right side. It was decided that we would try and make it to Santa Rosa and see if we could get the tire changed.

We proceeded at 55 mph up the mountain and suddenly the bus began pulling very hard up the grade. I looked down and the temp gage was past the hot point and the red coolant warning light was one. We pulled over and shut the motor off. Steam was going everywhere. After some inspection we saw that the lower radiator hose had about a 2 inch hole rubbed in it from the power steering arm. The area we were in had no cell phone signal at all. Two elderly ladies drove by slowly and eventually came back as one of them had a 911 signal on her phone. Tom talked to the operator and they said they would send someone out. In the meantime, Tom, Jim and I crawled under the bus to try and work on the hose to see if we could get it running again. Jim cut the hose off and after some prayer; Tom got the shortened hose to hook up again.

We had one gallon of water in the back of the bus that we poured into the radiator. We then opened the coolers and had everyone start opening 8 oz. water bottles that we poured into the reservoir. When it seemed full, we started the bus and we had no leaks and the temperature was normal. By this time a wrecker from the town of Corona, population 165 showed up. Bob, of Bob’s Automotive was the operator and he said we should follow him in case anything happened. After a short distance the engine overheated again as we had an air pocket in the system and really never had enough water. Bob hooked up the bus to his wrecker; put the youth and some of the women in with him and the rest of us sat back in the bus for the ride to Corona.

Bob said he had a tire that would fit our bus and a radiator hose also. While we waited we went to the only café in town for lunch. Pretty soon Bob arrived and told Tom that we needed 4 tires instead of 1 and he had 4 used tires that were the exact size as the ones on our bus. He also told us that one of the tires on the left side would not have made it home, and the tire next to the one we threw the tread off had a very large bulge in it and was about to blow out. It didn’t take long for everyone in our group to realize that there was a reason that radiator hose blew out. God caused that hose to fail to prevent us from going any farther on tires that were a danger to us.

In the bible, the arm of God always symbolizes protection. The writers of the bible knew the power of a symbol. It brings a picture which impresses our subconscious mind. The long arm of God reaches out over people and conditions, controlling their situation and protecting their interests.

Isaiah 59:1 says: “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save.” 16 people on a church bus in the mountains of New Mexico on March 25, 2011 will not argue that point one bit.