God Sightings- The Maker's Mar

 

Monday, December 5, 2016

“Without Him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:3).

Hey Gang:  I have said it before and I say it again, my bride is a compulsive reader.  I have also said it before and say it again, she does not read books, she consumes them.  I have also heard it said opposites attract.  In this area of our relationship I would totally agree. So, I rely on her to do most of the new reading and, when something truly rings her bell, I find a book on my desk with a note or bookmark which means “READ THIS”.

This morning was one of those times.  I judge her love of books, and she does truly love books, by opening the cover and seeing how many times she has read it.  In the coming weeks, ten or twelve or if I find a new one, thirteen books will get a repeat performance for her highness, the queen of my castle.

The following story by Elizabeth Sherrill is taken from a book in her archives from 2005.  It remains part of her library because it contains some very neat stories of victories in people’s lives- and we need to dig into and pay special attention to them - victories in Believer’s lives.  But there is another reason it remains firmly implanted on her bookshelf of very special books, it was given by a very special friend who has since gone to be with the Lord.

Elizabeth addresses a problem that I have heard many people voice in the modern day of “You must fill every moment of every day with something that will make you rise on the totem pole.   I recall a story written by Max Lucado about his trip to Israel.  He thought it would be an experience of walking and hearing the voice of God.  Such was not the case for him in Jerusalem but in the Galilee…

 Elizabeth wrote:

It’s December, the season of Advent, when our thoughts should focus on the coming of Jesus – as a baby in a manger and the King of kings at the end of time.  But., oh dear!   With shopping and mailing and writing cards and getting the house ready for guests, I often forget the point of it all.

 So as left the house today, I murmured a quick prayer; Don’t let me lose sight of You today, Lord!

 Answers to my pleas came all day long.  Driving down roads recently cleared by snowplows, I recalled other obstacles also cleared away - like getting in to see the doctor whose schedule was “completely full.” And I saw God as the One Who, time and again, has opened a way for me.  Outside the grocery store, a bell-ringer stood beside a Salvation Army kettle.  Jesus has compassion for the poor.

 

In the children’s clothes section at a department store, a woman worried over the fit of a pair of boys’ jeans she was sending as a Christmas gift.  How perfectly God fit His Gift to our need.

 

At the drugstore checkout counter, a manager was blasting a tired clerk for entering the wrong key on the cash register.  Jesus took abuse from the authorities, too.  ‘Let me not lose sight of You’….It must be a prayer God loves to answer because all days, everywhere I looked, in everyone I met and everything I saw, there He was!

 

This year I’ve remembered specific God sightings, past and present.  Today He told me, “There is nothing you can see, nothing you can hear or touch, where I’m not.” 

 

Tonight, after the boob-tube is silenced and the house is quiet get out your Sword and ask God to lead you into a new level of understanding, and read David’s word in Psalm 139 and ask, “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any ‘hurtful way in me. And lead me in the everlasting way” (vs. 23-24).

 

“Christmas is the White-hot moment when Eternity melted into Time.” Christ in the Carols by Christopher and Melody Lane

 

Blessings,

 Gramps

Enlarge my vision to see Jesus in all my situations now and on the coming days.