July 26, 2010

“In waiting, I waited, for the Lord.” Psalm 40:1

Back at the turn of the last century when I was a young lad (that is what my kids think) I helped a neighbor on his farm. His father had once had a dairy farm on that land and had planted a fast growing rose bush to make fence rows. Within a couple years those bushes had grown higher than a man’s head, as wide as a car and nothing but Ber-rabbit could go through that tangle of vines and sharp thorns. Those hedge rows were designed to keep the cows in and worked better than any barbwire ever made. Sometimes God plants a briar patch around us and hedges us in. Then we find our path blocked and we must wait. Waiting is much more difficult than walking. Waiting requires patience and patience is a rare virtue toady. Certainly one the Barnes clan missed out on. Hedges are great for protecting us from things, but when the hedge grows so tall and thick that we can not see around or over it, we often begin to wonder if we will ever get out of its sphere of influence and service we have been limited to. Sometimes it becomes hard to “brighten the corner” where we are hedged into. But God has purpose in all His holdups. Psalm 37:23 says “The steps of a good man (or woman) are ordered by the Lord.” (parentheses mine) The great saint of prayer and faith, George Mueller once wrote in the margin of his Bible beside the verse above; “And the stops also.” It is a sad mistake for men to break through God’s hedges. It is a vital principle that Christians must learn to never move out of the place in which he is sure God has placed him until God opens a door and says, “GO!”

Thought for the week: A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized. -- Fred Allen

Funny for the week: Where did our innocence go?

Out bicycling one day with my eight-year-old granddaughter, Carolyn, I got a little wistful. 'In ten years,' I said, 'you'll want to be with your friends and you won't go walking, biking, and swimming with me like you do now. Carolyn shrugged. 'In ten years you'll be too old to do all those things anyway.'

Yelp, there now…………. Chaplain Barnes

Last week’s answer: What two men in the Bible made a love covenant? David and Jonathan (1 Sam. 18:4)

This week’s question: The title of what book in the Bible means the “preacher”?