LEAP DAY: ANY PLANS?

This is "Leap Day" and it usually happens every four years according to the Gregorian Calendar.  (If you use a Hebrew Calendar then you simply get one extra month every 19 years.)  Imagine a year with 13 months instead of 12!

Now this is probably a little too much of a science lesson for me but I am reminded of Joshua10:13.  It says, "So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped until the people defeated their enemies..."The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and waited to go down for a full day (Joshua 10:13 NCV)."  Joshua prayed for this miracle and God's divine intervention enabled the children of Israel time to defeat their enemy.

Now I am not praying for the "sun to stand still and the moon to stop" but sometimes I have to admit that I do say "I wish I had more time."  Well I do!  This year gives me an extra day.  Now that I have an extra day on my calendar for this year, what will I do with it?  Will it become absorbed into the other 365 days and just become another day? 

Time is the most valuable thing that any of us have.  Once time is spent it cannot be retrieve.  Life goes on, regardless if we plan for it or not.

My prayer really should not be "Lord, give me more time," but "Lord, help me to use my time wisely.  Help me to add value to the life of others by doing for others what they cannot do for themselves.   Help me to speak words of encouragement when I speak and to know how to listen with my heart.  To point out the strengths in others lives and not their weaknesses..."

"Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow.  For what is your life?  It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away."  (James 4:14 KJV)

"Lord, help me to spend this day, and every day wisely helping others!"

I WANTED TO BE A POLICEMAN

I was asked as a first grader in school "What do you want to be when you grow up?"   My response was, "I want to be a policeman!"  I was fascinated by the policeman (Mr. Hoggnett) in the uniform that patrolled the traffic at "Unity Elementary School", where I attended.

I recently used the quote by J. Wallace Hamilton, "Every person's life is a diary in which he or she means to write one story and is forced to write yet another."  

Life is a funny thing.  It never turns out the way that we thought that it would.  Culture, education, dreams, and decisions we make, all help to write down on unseen pages the story of our life and it never turns out the way that we planned.


But there are some absolute truths about our life that we can be certain about.  

• God KNEW you before you were ever born. 
• "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations."  Jeremiah 1:5
• God has GREATER plans for us than what we have for ourselves.
•  "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord."  Isaiah 55:8
• God is ALWAYS writing a new chapter in our life.
•  "Look at the new thing I am going to do.  It is already happening....I will make a road in the desert and rivers in the dry land."  Isaiah 43:19

Being a P-olicemen would not have been a bad thing but I am glad that God called me to be a P-astor and a P-reacher instead.  (At least I had the first letter correct.)  How did you start out writing your life story and has it turned out different than you planned?

Route 95

Forty-five years ago I attended my grandfather's funeral in a small South Georgia (USA) church on a hot summer day. The nearest thing to air condition was the fans the funeral home provided. I remember at the end of the service crying as the Hearst, carrying the body of my grandfather, pulled away from the front of the church. My heart was broken. At the age of six I never dreamed that I would stand and preach to a group of people in that same church building.

But again, 15 years later, I traveled 200 miles to that South Georgia town to preach. It was so hot that day that the pastor of the church compared it with hell by saying "hell will be hotter than this." It was a great opportunity for me to preach in the church that my grandparent's use to attend.

This past week I traveled back to that same South Georgia town, walked back into that building, this time not to attend my grandfather's funeral, nor to preach as a young preacher, but to finalize the sell of the church property for the organization in which I am a part of. The church congregation had relocated and the money from the sell of the property will be used to improve the facility they are now using.

This is a new chapter in the life of this church, and I truly believe is a great move for this church. I am convinced that the building served it's purpose for the organization that I am a part of and it was time to release it for someone else to carry on the work in that community. I am thankful that I had the privilege to be a part of this transition. I journeyed back by the building one last time to give thanks to God for the many lives that had been changed during the time that we had this facility. I stood at the altar and asked God's blessings on the next group. I drove away feeling that this is a new beginning for the existing congregation that relocated as well as for this community. I know that somehow in God's sovereignty He has a plan.

This journey that God has us on may take us on a detour from time to time but some how we always seem to come back to our roots. If I live to be 95 (45 years from now), I wonder where this journey will take me - probably to the Nursing Home :)

"Lord, make me to know my end,And what is the measure of my days, That I may know how frail I am..." (Psalm 39:4 NKJV).