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Saturday, April 1, 2017

Where Are We Headed?

                        Work, Play, Rest and Grow






      Sometimes the simplest things in life are the hardest to grasp. It took me years to learn to ask God to take care of the small things in my life as well as the big ones. The light came on as I cruised around an overflowing parking lot. It had been a long hot day and I was very tired. I told the Lord I really did not want to walk all the ways from the back of the parking lot.  Then the verse in James 4:2 passed thru my mind. “You have not because you ask not.”  So without wavering I asked the Lord to provide me a space.  As I cruised up the aisle I saw the very first car in the row start backing out.  I said, Thank You Lord and pulled into the parking spot. I sat there a few minutes pondering what had happened.  Is it really that simple or was it just a coincidence.  Looking back on the course of my life it had happened many times. To me Proverbs 4:18 says the more you trust God the brighter his light gets in your life. From that day forward I have tried to remember to take everything to the Lord.

     When I leave home I ask the Lord to prepare my path and generally find a front row spot. Often enough that my wife one day asked me how I always seemed to get a front row spot. I told her I pray about it and she laughed, I did too, but mine was a laugh of gratitude for the wisdom I had come to understand and was able to share, which brings me to the purpose of this post.  As my grand-daughter always says, Sharing is caring and that is why I write.

      It is easy to drift away from trusting in the Lord. When I came to the Lord, or better said, back to the Lord, after a long period of running away from him. I had nothing. I had lost my business, my house, my family, and after spending six months one winter living in my van in Ft. Meyers, FL I returned home only to lose the van also. Finally I turned to God and told him I had nothing to give or share but my time and that I would tithe my time in His Word.  For the next few years I spent roughly two and a half hours a day reading the Bible.  It was easy when I was unemployed.  It became a challenge once I got a job.  Having spent months going from door to door looking for a job and doing yard work or whatever I could find to survive I knew the job I had was a Blessing from God.  You read enough of my blog stories you will come to see why I say that.  Less than three years later I had back everything I had lost, including my family. Materially all that I had lost was recovered and actually increased in both quality and quantity.

     Thirty-five years later I sit here and as I look back over the years it is easy to see God’s hand in my life and that he in fact has guided my path and opened the doors in my life. Just as His Word says he will do if we seek Him with all our heart and soul. While it was happening I did not understand much of it. Time has given me the perspective to see that when I had a massive heart attack and had to quit trucking and sell half of everything I owned to keep my house, God’s hand was in it. The easiest way to tell the story is to tell you to read my blog post of June 25, 2006 titled A Tale of Life and Death, My last Post. It tells the story and is fairly long.  Here is the link address http://rictheturtleryan.blogspot.com/2016/06/a-tale-of-life-and-death-my-last-post.html for anyone who might want to read it.

   There is a certain irony for me in sitting here and writing this today.  It is April Fool’s Day and is a day that has had significance in my life since April 1969, Here is a link that explains why.  http://rictheturtleryan.blogspot.com/2014/04/when-god-says-april-fool.html     Sometimes it is easier to share a link than explain, especially since some people are looking for quick answers. The only problem with that is you short change yourself of the results of really searching out an answer.

    It took me a long time to really understand that the following verse applies just as much today as it did when it was given.
      It is II Chronicles 7:14 __ 14If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

     In this day and age there are too many nominal Christians.  At times I am one, it takes true dedication and perseverance to become a real Christian.  One that lives the Word of God and not one that just quotes it and gives lip service, but make no changes to the way they live. It only matters if you really care where you will spend eternity. Looking at the World we live in today, especially the country we live in today lip service has become the standard most live by. How did we get to this point as a nation?  Certainly not by living according to verse mentioned above.

  In Joshua 1:8 God made it pretty clear what he considered following him.
   “8This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”  Many people say I don’t have time for all that.  Then they complain because they walk around broke even though they make decent money, and their lives are in chaos.

    The wisest man who ever lived laid it out very plainly in First Proverbs,

“To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; 3To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;  4To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.  5A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: 6To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. 7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.  8My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: 9For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

    My goal is not to preach, it is to live according to what I have learned. My writing has definitely diminished as I have tried to apply it to my life.  Hopefully the quality has increased, but that is determined by you the readers and by how much you share it.  I don’t advertise other than sharing on Facebook and Twitter and as my readership grows it lets me know that what is being said is being shared and that is how this post grows. It has been read in over 70 countries now and at times by almost a 1,000 people a month. The more it grows, the more I feel motivated to share from the experiences in my own life.  What I pray for now is for God to give me the stamina and energy to do what I feel called to do. 

     When I started my walk with the Lord I never had a problem finding those two and a half hours a day. I did it before breakfast, during meals and before bedtime. Now finding time for even a few minutes is a challenge.  Not because I have less time, but because my priorities have falling away from my first love. As it says in the first verse I quoted all we need to do is turn our hearts back to Him and He will take care of us.

   This year I am sharing the top thirty posts of all the six years I have been writing. The link in this paragraph links to my best ones from 2015 and before with links. The list following this paragraph gives some new ones for 2016 and the dates they were posted. Hope they share in a way that helps people grow in their understanding and walk with the Lord.


How Dancing Lessons Could Fix America                            110        8/30/16

Comprehensive Two Part Gun Solution                                 115       8/516

JESUS SAID IT NOT ME                                                     118       7/27/16

A Tale of Life and Death, My Last Post?                              219       6/23/16

Coming Full Circle                                                                255        6/7/15

Turning a Corner in Time                                                     165         4/10/15

The Truth Will Set You Free                                                155         3/27/15

How-to Recycled and Cheap Starting Pots                           126        2/9/15

A Book Review of “Running From a Crazy Man”               154        1/10/15

A Little Further Down the Path                                            122         11/4/14

When God Says April Fools                                                 139         4/11/14

Putting Your Hand to the Plow                                           115          12/15/13

Sign of Jonah, The Only Sign Given                                    91           5/27/14

Building A Hedge of God’s Protection                                95           6/22/13

Is America Dysfunctional/ Or Reprobate?                         127          2/22/13

Simple Shelves and Recycled Storage Units, How-to       258          12/26/12

Deadhead ? Or Not? How to Judge                                   132            9/14/12

Money, Victory Over STUFFITIS                                    246             6/13/12

Trucker Logic                                                                   165             5/28/12

Israel’s 1st Jubilee in 2000 Years Begins                         243             5/17/16

Mad Dogs of Darkness                                                     199               5/9/16

Top Posts of 2015                                                              224              3/4/16

Are You Who You Think You Are                                  129              10/15/15

Armageddon  Anyone?                                                     162              10/2/15

Fixing the Holes in Your Pockets                                    170               8/28/15

Blessed to Death                                                    174                    8/13/15

Church of the Eighty Foot Parking Lot                206                     7/24/15

Hope in the Face of Mayhem                               150                     7/20/15


A Meal with the Least of These                              93                    12/25/14