I woke up this morning thinking about how God has really controlled my life all the way through. Before I was ever born He knew my name and had the wheels in motion for my life. None of us were, "by chance conceived."
The summer after I was saved I went to church camp. Ironically the church camp I went to was Lincoln Lake in Greenville Michigan. Some of you may have been there. I met some of my best friends there. People like Darcy and Doug Hutson. Doug was so cute, he was the first Michigan boy I ever kissed, in a wild strawberry patch.
Darcy and I wrote to each other and once in a while we talked on the phone. A few years latter we rode a church bus to Lake Ann, somewhere up near the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. We were little boogers in some ways. We stayed up late giggling and talking; we had to clean the bathrooms for all the giggling and keeping people awake. After cleaning we decided to short sheet the counselor's bed. Another night we put cornflakes in her bed. The list goes on and on.
But then, there was a big bomb fire and a very serious talk about our lives. Particularly, not just were we saved, but did Christ really have control of our lives? Darcy and I both threw our sticks in the fire, representing that God's Will was more important than our individual will. We both committed our wills to Christ for rest of our days how ever long or short that may be. His will would be completed, before our own desire or will.
Darcy grew up in First Baptist Church in Stanton MI. I went to Lincoln Avenue Baptist in Ionia MI. Darcy married Bob Goodenough, who became a pastor of Nevins Lake Baptist Church. Mark and I took our kids to church there.
Mark's Uncle Leo persuaded me to go on a blind date with Mark. I had never been on a blind date, and really didn't want to go, but agreed to just to appease Leo. Ironically, Mark grew up at First Baptist in Stanton too. He never went to camp, but we still ended up married with two kids. Isn't it something how God pieces all of us all together?
"I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord and I will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you, declares the Lord, and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."
Jeremiah 29:11-14 (NIV)
Not all days are bright and sunny when we yield to God, but He knows what's best. The happiest and the fullest our lives can be are in His will.
Look at the book of Haggai it's such a short little book, only 2 chapters. Our earthly efforts are in vain without seeking Him first.
"Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat but never have enough. You drink but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but never are warm. You earn wages only to put them in a purse with holes in it."
Haggai 1:5&6 (NIV)
"If a person defiled by contact with a dead body touches one of these things, does it become defiled?
"Yes" the priest replied, It becomes defiled."
"Then Haggai said, "So it is with this people and this nation in my sight declares the Lord. Whatever they do and whatever they offer there is defiled." Haggai 2:12-14
"From this day on, from the twenty fourth day of the ninth month, give careful thought to the day when the temple foundation of the Lord was laid. Give careful thought: Is there yet any seed left in the barn? Until now, the vine and the fig tree, the pomegranate and the olive tree have not borne fruit.
"From this day on I will bless you." Haggai 2:18-28
The final verse of this chapter God says, "for I have chosen you, declares the Lord Almighty." that's the end of Haggai 2:23. If God has chosen you as one of His own, the rules still apply today; serve God with all your heart. Do things in His timing, not your own. This is the only way He will bless you.
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