Tuned in and obedient

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Acts 8:26-40

TO CHEW ON: "Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, 'Arise and go toward the south which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.' This is desert.' Acts 8:26

"Put a sack of flour over your shoulder and walk down the road."

That's the instruction John Joshua Matteson heard one day. John, a serious, hard-working young man was not one to give in to imagination or impulse. Yet God's order was unmistakable.

John tried to rationalize it away. The idea was outlandish. He would look foolish going down the road with a sack of four. The family didn't have extra food.

Yet he had grown up in a Methodist home that taught and lived the importance of obeying God. His mother had been a missionary and was a committed abolitionist. His father had told him many mission field stories too.

John's conflict that day ended with partial obedience. He walked down the road, but without the flour sack on his shoulders. Steven Stiles continues the telling of this true story about his grandfather:

"John walked a good distance along the dirt road near Stockton, California. He was still pondering why he should ever have been carrying flour, when he was approached by a horse and wagon occupied by an exhausted and disheveled family. A conversation ensued. 'We are hungry,' the family finally told him. 'We have enough to cook a meal, but no flour. We have been praying, and God told us he would bring us a bag of flour. We were so excited to see you approaching in the distance, and we really thought you were they man God told us about'" - Steven Stiles, Journey on the Hard Side of Miracles, p. 295.

I can't say that I have ever heard God's audible instructions like Philip or John did. But I have known His gentle pressure, calling me to focus on activities with eternal values while allowing the temporary to atrophy, edging me away from one task to another. I understand John's struggle, to a point at least. It is always a matter of paying attention with the ears of faith, and obedience.

What an example of ready, unarguing obedience Philip gives us. No objections about why going off to the desert is a bad idea and how foolish he'll look. No rationalization that he has better things to do with his time. He just goes and we have this wonderful miracle-encounter story of a seeker, finding Jesus.

PRAYER: Dear God, help me to be tuned in to Your frequency of living life so that I will hear Your instructions and have the faith to carry them out.

MORE: The rest of the story.

John went home that day and faced his failure to believe. Sometime later he felt the need to share this incident at church. Quoting Stiles again:

"When he was finished sharing his story about the sack of flour, a visitor, sitting with his wife and children spoke up:

'We were that family! We were the ones who talked to you! Let me tell you what happened. After we left you, we traveled up the road and met a farmer. When we had talked with him for a while, the farmer looked at us and volunteered that we looked like we could use a sack of flour, and he went and brought us one.'


Whatever John learned form that battle of faith was due not to his tenacity, but to a merciful God who turns our failure into purpose. What we learn from our own experiences of faith, especially miracles, is often just the same" - Steven Stiles, Journey on the Hard Side of Miracles, p. 296 (emphasis added).

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Samuel's obedience

"Saul meets Samuel" - James Tissot

TODAY'S SPECIAL: 1 Samuel 9:1-27


TO CHEW ON: "And Samuel said to the cook, 'Bring the portion which I gave you, of which I said to you, "Set it apart."'" 1 Samuel 9:23

Consider all the incidents that had to dovetail in order for Saul and Samuel to come together: donkeys lost, Kish sends son Saul to look for them, no success, Saul and his servant decide to go see the prophet (Samuel), the servant finds payment for him, they come to the city just after Samuel has arrived. That's quite an impressive string of "coincidences."

However, one detail of the story at least is a matter of faith followed by obedience on Samuel's part. Our focus verse highlights it. Samuel has a special kingly portion of food ready for Saul because he has earlier instructed the cook to set aside a special cut of meat for the guest of honor, and this before he knows who that guest will be or has even met him. In fact, it appears the whole sacrificial banquet is arranged in anticipation of Samuel meeting Israel's first king before their paths ever cross (1 Samuel 9:22-24).

Such stories of the faith and obedience of biblical characters always sober me. I ask myself,

• Do I have ears attentive to hear God's voice and discern His instructions?

• Do I obey promptly, even when my obedient course of actions doesn't make sense?

PRAYER: Dear God, please tune my ears to Your voice and help me to respond with the faith and obedience that acts even when it does not see. Amen.

MORE: The importance of listening

"But the important thing in doing any ministry ... is to make certain that you are doing what you are supposed to do. And above all, you need to listen to the Shepherd. Never go where he does not lead, and never fail to go where he does lead" - Dr. Steven Stiles, Journey on the Hard Side of Miracles, p. 179.

Miracles through worship

A gospel bus at my town's antique car show

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Isaiah 30:27-31:9


TO CHEW ON: "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,

And rely on horses,

Who trust in chariots because they are many

And in horsemen because they are very strong,

But who do not look to the Holy One of Israel

Nor seek the Lord!" - Isaiah 31:1

Steven Stiles tells of the time their church youth group was on a mission trip and they got to the last service station before their planned drive through the night just after it had closed. There was no way their two old gas-guzzling school buses and one van could make the 160 miles to their destination without running out of fuel. But somehow on that night they had faith to trust God for a miracle. Here are snatches of the story of as Stiles tells it in Journey on the Hard Side of Miracles:

"We decided we would indeed drive into the night, and whatever happened would happen. We would simply trust God to take care of us ... p. 248.


... Before getting back on board I suggested that we should be praying during the entire time we were travelling while running out of fuel. Everyone grabbed the idea and ran with it. We were going to begin this adventure in faith worshipping God, and we should honour and praise him the entire time he was leading us to whatever was going to happen next... p. 249.


...After we saw that the fuel gauges had pinned, we turned every more deeply to the Shepherd, and as the miles continued to roll by, we began to experience a palpable sense of God's mercy and care... p. 251.


... There is no way to adequately describe what was happening to us as the hours passed. The farther we travelled, the more grateful we felt. It was as though we were somehow being carried down the road as our singing and praise lifted heavenward in the darkened mountain wilderness. Other than the Everlasting Arms, I have no idea how those two buses continued through the night ... p. 253.


...Now so very close to Marsing with only the final gentle rise before reading level ground, the riders on the Ford gave in to their exhaustion and they decided to stop singing. But that city was not our source of help. Just as suddenly as the singing stopped, the engine on the Ford also stopped" p. 254.

When I first read this story I couldn't help but think of instances in the Bible where physical intercession and worship worked a breakthrough:

• Moses' lifted arms helped Israel gain the victory over the Amalekites (Exodus 17:11)

• The trumpeters and the ark led the parade around Jericho (Joshua 6:8, 15-16).

• Queen Esther's three-day fast preceded the Jews' triumph over Haman's threat (Esther 3:16).

• Singers and worshippers led Israel into battle under King Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 20:21,22).

Note a reference to song even in the first part of today's reading. Right in the middle of the judgement on Assyria these words appear:

"You shall have a song

As in the night when a holy festival is kept,

And gladness of heart as when one goes with a flute,

To come into the mountain of the Lord,

To the Mighty One of Israel... Isaiah 39:29-30.

PRAYER: Dear God, I have much to learn about spiritual breakthrough via praise and worship. Please be my teacher in this area. Amen.

MORE: The songs they sang

Some of the oldies that reverberated through the schoolbuses that night:

"Got Any Rivers"
(The link has a couple of stanzas I wasn't aware of.)

"Peace, peace, wonderful peace"

"Precious Lord, Take My Hand"

The 'greater works'

"He who has seen me has seen the Father"
by James Tissot

TODAY'S SPECIAL: John 14:1-14

TO CHEW ON: "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father." John 14:12

We often call the great works Jesus did miracles. His promise that "greater works" would flow from our lives can easily cause stress when we see no such works. Then it is easy to either abandon the possibility of miracles altogether (rationalizing that their era has passed and thus our signless lives are the normal Christian experience) or to beg God for miracles (interpreting their presence or absence as indicators of God's approval or disapproval of us).

Steven Stiles in his book Journey on the Hard Side of Miracles weighs in on this. Though in his ministry to street people he and others saw more than a few miracles happen, he cautions against seeking them for their own sake:

"The greatest danger in seeking miracles outside of God's will is that we become intrigued by miracles themselves and thereby disregard the One who did the miracle in the first place.


Another danger arises in seeking miracles that are outside of God's purpose. God knows what we need before we do, and he likewise knows when we need a miracle. Our first responsibility is to seek God's will.


Yet another danger in pursuing miracles outside of God's will is that we may begin to look for miracles where they do not exist or even try to discover strategies for making them happen....


Knowing God's faithful care for us is sufficient reason for gratitude, whether we ever see a special miracle or not, God is already watching over us, and he is already providing for us in countless ways we do not see. If the Shepherd never leaves us and never fails to give us our daily bread to eat, and if he always provides us with the water of life to drink so that our thirst is forever gone, why should we ask for more? John 6:35." - Steven Stiles, Journey on the Hard Side of Miracles, pp. 152, 153.

PRAYER: Dear God help me to be available for You to do whatever is Your will in my life, whether through natural or miraculous means. Amen.

MORE: More on the why of miracles

"I have come to believe that those special miracles that shake our preconceived realities, and even those quiet miracles we may see day by day, are not for entertainment purposes. They are memories to be cherished, lessons to be learned, and counsel to receive.

They cause our knees to bend and our hearts to yield. They are a privilege to see, and they tell us, sometimes when we need to hear it most, that nothing can or ever will happen in our lives unless it is allowed by the Good Shepherd." - Steven Stiles, p. 10 (emphasis added).

"His miracles are not designed in the way that we might ever think to put them together. They are not always designed for us to understand. They are designed to teach us to trust him" - Steven Stiles, p. 124 (emphasis added).