[Faith-talk] Daily Thought for Sunday, October 27, 2013

[Paul]

Hello all of you on this Lord's Day.  I hope and pray that, when you get to read this, that you had a good day in the Lord and that you hopefully will apply what you have heard and learned to your individual lives as the gracious Holy Spirit enables regarding what you and your fellow congregants heard from your pastors and/or Sunday school teachers.  As for me, I didn't learn anything from our visiting interim preacher, a Pastor Barney, the reason being was that, like quite a few all-black churches, he spoke extremely loudly, forcing me to go into the church's foyer for my own sanity's sake and the safety of my hearing.  Which begs the question:  Does a preacher have to yell himself hoarse to effectively proclaim the Word of God? I think not, but maybe in some cultures that's the norm.  Thankfully Pastor Harry C. Cook, our congregation's shepherd, does not yell and I can receive into my mind and heart what he is trying to impart to our congregation.  Of course, I give full credit for that to the Holy Spirit.

Unlike yesterday's Daily Thought message, the one for today is extremely short.  It was written by Mary Nelson of Charlotte, North Carolina, and is entitled "From Your Lips To God's Ear," rendered as follows:

I woke up feeling sorry for myself.  I was tired of hobbling around with a cast on my leg.  I'd broken my ankle on a family outing in the country, and now autumn had rushed in overnight.  The house was downright chilly.  "Brrr," I shivered.  "This would be a good soup day." I craved the comfort of a homemade soup.  You can't get that from a can.  But my refrigerator didn't have much to offer, and a trip to the store seemed like too much effort.  Still, all day I couldn't get that soup idea out of my head.  Sure would be nice if some dropped from heaven, I thought at lunchtime.

About five o'clock I opened the front door to get the mail.  A gift bag hung on the handle of the storm door.  What in the world? I peered inside the bag.  Would you believe it? There were four containers labeled with different kinds of homemade soup.  Who had delivered this gift from heaven?

I called a friend, thinking it might have been her.  No, she wasn't my soup angel, but guess what.  "I'm finishing up a soup right now," she said, "to bring you for dinner tonight!" So now I had five soups.  What an abundant blessing, just when I needed it.

And there you have Mary's short article, which only goes to you that, if you really have God's ear and it is in His will for you to have a needed (and sometimes wanted) thing, that He might put it in the heart of someone to provide that particular item for you.  The key is His will, whether that be His revealed will or permissive will.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul