“Could you run down to the grocery store and get me a couple of things please Honey?”      Debbie asked her new husband.

“Why sure”, Jeff replied only too happy to oblige.

“I’ll give you a list”, Debbie went on.

“No, no” Jeff insisted, “I’ll be OK. What do you want?”

“Well, I need some self-rising flour, and a packet of Twinings tea”, she said as she wiped her hands on the towel.

Jeff bounded off, happy to do his beloved’s wish.

He got to the shop and found the section for baking needs. “Flour” he muttered, and then looked at the array of different sorts of flour before him. “Now what sort did she ask for?” he asked himself. High grade, plain white, brown, self-rising, bread flour. Her instructions flew out of his mind.

It was in the days before cell phones, so he made a wild guess and picked a packet off the shelf.

It was the same in the tea section. “Tea”, he muttered, “Now what sort did she ask for?”

Green tea, black tea, cheap tea, expensive tea…. Nerada tea, Bell tea, Choysa tea, Twinings tea? He made a stab and picked a packet up and put it in his basket.

When he got home, Debbie saw what he had brought. “Those aren’t the ones I asked for Jeff”, she wailed, “Why didn’t you listen?”

“Well, I did get flour and tea”, he said.

You see, Jeff had heard, but he hadn’t really listened. This what so many of us are like with what God tells us. Yes, we hear that God loves us, but we don’t listen to the fact that He is a holy God and can’t stand sin. We hear that He wants to bless us, but we don’t listen to the fact that He only blesses those who give their lives to Him and do their best to follow Him. We may even know that verse that says that “all things work together for good”, but we don’t take notice that is only for those who love God and are doing what He wants them to. Let’s make sure that we REALLY listen to what God is saying to us, and then act on it. If Jeff had really LISTENED to Debbie, he would have taken the right things home for her!!

This is why Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear”. He wants those who hear His Word, to act on it….this is true hearing, obedience.

    We have had two unexpected deaths in the last two weeks in our small community….both people in younger age brackets, and both accidental, sudden tragedies.

One was a fit man in his late forties, who was taking his young son to the local BMX circuit for an afternoon of fun and exercise. He sent his boy ahead of him and then set off behind him. As he went over one of the jumps, something went wrong and he flipped off his bike landing on his head, and breaking his neck. The doctors said that if he had survived, he would have had no quality of life at all. Small comfort to his family.

Then a woman in her thirties was walking down the street towards the local park. As she was going down the slope, she noticed a car seemed to be stuck on the verge and was revving its motor up trying to get out. She skirted around the back of it and at the very moment she was directly behind it, the driver’s foot slipped and with a jolt the car reversed into her, squashing her against a brick wall  behind her. She didn’t stand a chance and died at the scene before the ambulance could get to her.

Neither of these people knew when they left home that they wouldn’t be returning that day, or ever again. These incidents show us how uncertain life is. We aren’t promised tomorrow. We aren’t even promised the end of the current day. The only moment we have is NOW.

The only certain thing about life is that it is going to end one day. Whenever there is a birth, there will be a death. But no-one knows when.

There is a verse in the Bible that says, “Teach me to number my days (consider my mortality); so that I may live wisely” (Psalm 90:12) 

   Let’s make sure that we consider these things and be ready to meet our Maker, no matter how suddenly or unexpectedly it may happen.

 “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man”…..

As I read those words in my morning Bible reading recently, my mind went back many years ago to the time when we HAD put confidence in what people had told us and were badly let down. We were contemplating buying a commercial building with two tenants leasing it. The tenant downstairs seemed reliable enough, but the we had some doubts about the ones upstairs. We asked them how long they were likely to need the lease for, and they said as long as they didn’t expand, there was no likelihood of them moving. So with that assurance, we bought the building.

For a few months, everything went well, and then the tenants upstairs gave notice that they were moving but would continue paying their rent until the end of their lease in six month’s time. This was a blow that we had hoped we wouldn’t have to face. Once the lease ran out, we were left with only half the income we had reckoned on, and as time went by we were unable to lease out the top floor. It was either too big, or there wasn’t enough parking. It was certainly never classed as being too small by any prospective tenant!

Things were not easy and we began to wonder if we had made a mistake in “putting our confidence in man “. We had prayed about the proposition before buying it and done our homework as thoroughly as we could, but now the only conclusion we could come to was that we must have made a mistake in buying the place.

During this time, my morning Bible reading was about the time when the Lord told His disciples to row across the lake, all the time knowing what was going to happen. He knew the storm was going to come and toss them about. Yet He still told them to go. They hadn’t made a mistake in setting off across the lake….they went at His bidding. He didn’t divert the storm, He allowed things to work out their course.  He knew He would meet them in their hour of desperate need and calm the storm.

After reading this story, my mind settled down somewhat. We hadn’t made a mistake after all, the Lord just wanted to teach us that He was in control and would release us from the situation in His good time. It didn’t happen overnight but the building eventually sold and we were released from the situation we were in. How relieved we were and overjoyed at not having to go through this hard time any more!!

I now know that whatever comes our way, God is always in control. If things are easy, we must give Him thanks, and when things come tough, we are to tighten our belts (figuratively) and still give Him thanks that things are no worse than they are! Above all, we are not to put our confidence in what people tell us, but to always trust in God and what He says.